


To The Rise

by colbub



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A lot of meandering, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Families of Choice, Friendship, Kinda, Loss, Reincarnation, Slow Build, Swords and magic, introspective, plot heavy, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-06-16 11:07:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 104,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15435732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colbub/pseuds/colbub
Summary: The world is large, and sometimes, a lone person can feel despairingly small.What else is there to do, sometimes, except to step forward?Kageyama has reincarnated into a new world, and he's determined to find them all. There are still things unsaid in his past life that he needs to say.





	1. The Case of Kageyama Tobio

# To The Rise

  


#### The Case of Kageyama Tobio

  


The forest wasn't really a forest until some ways away from his village, but the slow transition of low scraggly bushes to spindly trees, then the spindly trees to large, thick canopies and wide trunks had always been somewhat calming to Kageyama ever since he learnt how to walk. 

He liked exploring. He'd walk until he reached the bits of the forest where the trees seemed to disappear into the sky in strong grasping tendrils before hoisting himself up onto a low branch and start to scrabble towards the top. On the days he succeeded breaking through the thin canopy, he would be greeted to the wash of warm sunlight and a gleaming sea of silvery leaves, stretching towards a mysterious shadow in the distance that Kageyama guessed was a great big city filled with all the modern wonders this world can offer. When he was perched on the crown of a tree, Kageyama liked to look at that large city shadow, in that stead-fast unblinking way that Hinata had called his _'creepy-yama'_ stare. 

What was there, in that city? 

While he was staring at what he liked to imagine was filled with the metal skyscrapers and the small corner-shops of home, he would feel a little hope that he wasn't the only one who ended up in this world. Maybe all his friends were waiting in that city, living their own lives and all he had to do was walk there and find them. Maybe they remembered him, despite being born again, despite being a child and growing up again. Despite, this time, being a little thinner, a bit paler. Maybe they’ll be there and…

Maybe he had died. Maybe he was in a coma. Maybe all those memories of Earth was just a hallucination, just like all the others.

Kageyama would stop thinking there, usually. Stop himself by climbing carefully downwards, focusing on his small knobby hands as they grappled down solid chunks of grainy grey bark. Dusting himself off, he'd dismiss the small cuts on his hands and wind his slow way home. He’d take deep breaths of the mountain air, and pin his eyes on unfamiliar stars.

Kageyama's village was situated within a mountain range, and the extra height the mountain offered created a more expansive view than most. One side of the range was a great desert filled with salt and dust, the other side a thick, dark forest that Kageyama wandered alone, most days.

Sometimes he pretended he was one of those survivors in those nature documentaries, who sniffed a fresh poop and probably knew what animal it came from, their age, what they ate, and the condition of their teeth. Other times he tried jumping between low branches in the forest, pretending to be ninja. 

Once he'd hooked an old fishing net between two trees as a net. Filled a small sack with leaves and mulch and tied it shut for a lumpy ball and tried to serve. The tie holding the sack fell apart when he hit it though, with a sad wet thump that scattered the leaves all over his head, and Kageyama spent the next few hours untangling the nets from the branches until he gave up and made it a hammock instead. 

Today, he didn't do any exploring, and nestled himself into the hammock and recited old stories to himself instead. 

Kaguya-hime (Yachi's favourite), Momotarou and his exploits (Hinata knew these all by heart), Guibli's Princess Mononoke (Asahi always got teary at the end), other small fairy tales (Noya volunteered at the library sometimes to read to children).

In his mind, Noya laughed a deep, gleeful laugh and teased. _'No kid would want to listen to you if you keep being that monotone, Kageyama!'_

He paused his recital, before taking a deep breath to dive into the next story. Maybe this time, he can start reciting the few dinosaur facts he'd absorbed from Tsukishima through sheer proximity...

“Why are you talking to yourself?”

The voice that cut through the forest silence made Kageyama startle so much he nearly toppled out of his hammock. As he gripped the swaying rope desperately, he blinked owlishly down at a small hooded fellow that stood on the small track that Kageyama had worn down from the many months he'd been coming to this tree. The figure waited patiently for his response.

“I was telling stories,” Kageyama replied hesitantly. 

“To who?” The figure asked.

“Not your business. Who are you?”

"A witch!" The figure replied, bubbly, bouncing a little on her heels. A smile flickered on Kageyama's lips at the exuberant reply. She kind of reminded him of Hinata. "Nice to finally meet you, Kageyama Tobio!"

Strange. How did she know his name? And also,

"What do you mean by 'finally'?" Kageyama asked, sitting up straight to give his full attention. 

"I mean, I've been searching for you for years. You're really hard to find, Kageyama Tobio!" The witch chirped.

Years? Kageyama wondered. “But I don't know you," Kageyama pointed out quite flatly. "I've also never been out of the village." _You're obviously not a villager either_ , he wanted to point out.

"I am a witch of the Ki clan from the Great Eastern Continent!" The witch said proudly, patting herself on the chest. "My name is Kiki! Nice to meet you, Kageyama Tobio, of Fisherman's Village! You gotta say, though," Kiki continued, "your village name is really misleading. I was searching for you around the coastline, not in the middle of a mountain range."

If she found him, Kageyama thought, then she'd probably knew about the _Demon King_ who'd risen ten years ago and put two and two together. In his anger, the _Demon King_ had made seas into deserts, collapsed countries, and in Kageyama's case, shifted the tectonic plates that had raised his village from a coastal town to a mountainous one.

He was two when his mother screamed and held him tight as the sea rushed forward, grasping at all the boats and rickety houses by the piers before pulling backwards, chunks of land and trees in its grasp. Somewhere, the earth groaned and cracked, the world tilted, their shelf of crockery fell and shattered as fingers dug into his ribcage. His mother murmured prayers into his hair, hiding beneath their table as the huddled in confusion and fear.

Eight hours later, their village was touching the clouds, and the sea was a pool of drying seaweed and rot from all the fish abandoned by the sea. Soon, where the sea had been had dried into a salty, desert landscape that stretched on, and on, and on. 

_Someone did this,_ thought Kageyama, hand cold in his mother's hands. _This couldn't have possibly been natural._

When he was three, he'd been allowed to attend the annual funeral rites in his village. Standing in front of a list of names engraved within the pillars of the city hall, he listened to the village elder speak of a _Demon King_ without any sort of irony or cracking laughs at cliché plot devices. He'd grasped his mother's hand when someone started crying at a name that was solemnly being listed, of people who'd died a year back. His mother nearly crushed his hand when his father's name got called. He watched the village elder light a funeral pyre with a wave of his hands and a yell filled with magic and thought

_This isn't Earth._

A hand waved in front of his face, and his eyes refocused upon the black-hooded cowl of a smiling girl. "Man, you're not a talker are you?" Kiki stated, smile evident in her voice. "Are you trying to grow up into a dark, broody type of guy? You got the potential for it, mhmm. Yes you do."

Kageyama's face twisted. "Haah?" Was she an idiot?

"Hehe, your face is funny!" Kageyama continued scowling even as Kiki continued grinning under her hood, undeterred. "Well, to get to business, I'm a postgirl! I'm here to deliver a message to you. My clan leader, Queen Kiyo, made a prophecy a long ass time ago and so I have to find three people and give something to them. It wasn't easy to track you three down, I tell you," Kiki shrugged. "Everyone was in so much chaos after that attack ten years ago…"

"Get to the point," Kageyama cut in flatly.

"Oh right! No flinching now!”

Kageyama's face grew wary when Kiki suddenly stuck her arm out and her hand glowed extremely white. It lit up the forest around them, and actually pushed Kageyama a few inches away just by the force of it.

He'd heard of magic, but he'd never actually seen it much. The only village elder who'd been able to do magic died when he was five.

Staring at the ball of magic in curiosity, he was about to reach out to touch it when Kiki leaned forward jabbed his forehead, right between his eyebrows, quick as a snake.

And in the heat, he saw _bubbleswaterashlaughtercampfiremasksgrinwarmthcorpse_ he tasted _smokeorangesapcrunchmintsweetsoft_ he smelt _orangemeatbunsmothballshome_ and he heard

he heard

 _"I'm waiting for you, baka-yama."_ A whisper in his ear, a laugh. Feet pattering away.

"Hinata?" He asked, not even daring to hope—

Kageyama's heart sank when there was no answer. 

Another hallucination then.

He opened his eyes when he realised he'd closed them, to see that the white light was gone, instead replaced by a clear, dark blue radiance that…

"What did you do to me?" Kageyama barked, falling off his hammock when he overbalanced flailing at the blue light that was shining through his skin. His skin!

"Dark blue huh," Kiki was saying, grasping her chin thoughtfully. "Sraosha? Benzaiten? Saraswati? Ichikishima? Which one are you? _Huvarshta_. Doesn't matter I guess, all incarnations of flow and wisdom are powerful. Lucky, lucky, Kageyama Tobio, to walk in knowledge's name!"

The blue glow was dying as he watched, settling down under his skin. He didn't feel strange either, when he sat up and brushed himself off gingerly. Huh.

"Now, to check if it worked! Kageyama Tobio, look above my head. Do you see something?"

Floating above Kiki's head in square brackets was a block of text. _"Kiki's Delivery Express?"_ Kageyama read out loud with disbelief. He eyed the witch's cowl again. Could she be hiding a Guibli heroine face underneath that hood? Did she own a black cat?

He still remembered curling into a worn sofa at Nishinoya's, Hinata blabbering on about something that happened in his day at his side, Tanaka roaring for _Nausicaa_ to be played first in their Guibli marathon first dammit! Chronology is important! Tsukishima was done with life in his corner as far away from everyone as he possibly could as he desperately stared at his phone, while Yamaguchi was longingly twisting _Spirited Away_ in his hands. That day had been the first time he'd watched the Guibli movies (part of the reason why they had the marathon was because Suga snitched about his horrible movie repertoire to Noya, who took it up as one of his sempai duties to educate his cute kouhai).

 _Kiki's Delivery Express_ was Yachi's favourite.

"Ooh, you got it right!" Kiki clapped. "Good! I've delivered Queen Kiyo's seal revocation, so now I just have to deliver Kiyoko-hime's message… where was it? Oh man, it's been ten years, I don't know if it's still here…"

Kageyama's mind blanked. Did he hear _Kiyoko?_

"Here it is! Here you go, Kageyama. Kiyoko-hime was only four years old when she recorded this message for you! It's _adorable_ , but I guess seers are mysterious and knowledgeable even when they're teeny tiny things, huh?" Kiki jumped off the branch and handed a small, black rectangular box to him, something sleek that reminded him of his modern phone. The only thing on it though, was a small black button at the top. "Press on the button when you want to see the message, I think Kiyoko-hime explains a few things in there. I've got places to be and things to deliver, so bye bye, Kageyama Tobio! See you maybe!"

And just like how abruptly she arrived in his life, Kiki left, leaving Kageyama bewildered and confused behind her.

When Kageyama woke himself up enough to chase after her down the path, bubbling with questions, she was gone.

  


* * *

  


He returned to his village at night when everyone was mostly asleep. The forest at night was eerie, but comfortable. He always made sure that he was out of the thick forest before sunset, so that he walked slowly up the mountain back home watching the moonrise. The moon was usually a silver gleam so thick that Kageyama always felt like it was something physical, to part with his hands and wade through. Sometimes, even after all these years, it still amazed him at how much the world had missed with light pollution.

One of Yamaguchi's smaller hobbies was watching the stars, and there'd been nights when they walked down the streets in one of the darker bits of the countryside and they would try their best to squint out constellations. Yamaguchi had an awkward laugh whenever he admitted he didn't know that much, before pointing out a random star he recognised out of the hundreds strands of light that, to be perfectly frank, looked exactly the same to Kageyama, and say "Ah! I recognise that one!"

Yamaguchi's laugh was on the back of his mind when he slipped through the village gates and down the road home.

On the way he tested out his weird text ability with the few people that were still awake. The old aunt who was doing some late night washing was _[Diligent Worker]_. The hobo guy that always loitered near the former town hall read _[Former Town Mayor]_. The most shocking one though, was the highly respected lady in town who liked going through the neighbourhood checking orphans like him. Kageyama raised eyebrows at seeing _[The Lady Who Ogles Through The Bathing Screen]_.

Really? Kageyama tried to remember if he'd ever seen her around the men's baths.

( _"Three times in the past two weeks Kageyama!"_ Yachi started hyperventilated in his mind. _"Three times!"_ )

Kageyama coughed an awkward hello back with the lady when she smiled and asked about his day before scurrying down a small offshoot of the main road back to his empty house. Scuffing off his sandals as he entered his hut, Kageyama sat on the small straw pallet he had for a bed and looked at the smooth tablet the witch had given him. Resting the tablet on his legs so that it didn't get dirty from the floor, Kageyama's hand shook as it neared the button.

Kiyoko-hime, Kiki had said.

Was it really the Kiyoko he knew? Was he not alone in being reincarnated here?

With badly suppressed hope, Kageyama pressed the button on the tablet. His first reaction to the small flickering image that beamed up from the tablet, of a small girl with clear eyes and a mole on her chin was—

( _"Kiyokoooooo, I haven't seen you in so long!"_ Nishinoya roared happily. _"I love you!"_ )

His first reaction was to—

( _"Noya, Noya, look, chibi-Kiyoko looks so adorable!"_ Tanaka chimed in, before faking swooning sounds)

When a child's face that was clearly Kiyoko's beamed up as an image from the tablet, Kageyama felt—

( _"Ryu! I know how it feels to see Kiyoko after so long,"_ Nishinoya choked, _"But you're going to be alright! BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF YOUR LOVE, RYU!"_ )

Kageyama had calmed down by the time Ennoshita had stepped up and forcefully brought the two under control. So instead of feeling like he was going to die like that one time after he'd just run Japan's longest marathon racing against Hinata (they'd _tied_ , it was horrible), he instead only gripped his knees hard enough to bruise.

Kiyoko on the screen, a cherubic faced child around four years old, gave him a slow smile.

"Hello, Kageyama," she said gently.

Kageyama ignored the clamour in his head and bowed his head towards the screen before quickly straightening up.

"Kiyoko-senpai!" Kageyama yelled sincerely. He didn't dare close his eyes. What if she was gone when he blinked? "It's been a long time!"

And although the Kiyoko recording had absolutely no way of even hearing him, Kageyama imagined that she was replying when she continued with "It's been a long time."

Kageyama was forced to scrub at his eyes when they overflowed.

  


* * *

  


Back in his first life, Kageyama was self-aware enough to know that he was painfully awkward.

Sure, he had the self-assurance to not care about his painfully awkward behaviours, but he'd known when Yamaguchi cringed, or Tsukishima snickered, or when Nishinoya and Tanaka reacted with extreme pride and called him 'their son!' he'd said something wrong. Not that he understood why. Kageyama was always impeccably polite to his upperclassmen and his superiors.

In primary school, he'd made three girls cry and four boys fight him after pointing out some simple observations that he thought they'd be happy to hear. In middle-school, he made a whole team abandon him. After that, he decided to just… adapt to the situation. He'd go to high-school, meet with his team-mates, correct whatever he was doing wrong to the best of his ability, and… perhaps distance himself a bit for self-reflection purposes.

Then came Hinata. Then came _Karasuno_.

Kiyoko came with that, his first year. They hadn't talked much. The most would be an encouraging smile in the middle of a match with a towel, before moving on for Yachi with her offering of water bottles. For practice, he'd preferred to ask Yachi, because Kiyoko usually set balls for Sugawara, Daichi and Asahi.

After the third years graduated, Kiyoko only tagged along with Sugawara half the times they met up, and even then she stuck next to the third years and Yachi. Yachi would, on their walk home, always blush and gush about how _'Kiyoko-san is so cool! She's beautiful as always!'_ to no-one in particular while Kageyama silently followed on the side thinking about what type of yogurt would be good for an after dinner snack. Hinata would chatter with anyone near him (usually Kageyama), while Tsukishima usually hooked his headphones up and bobbed slightly to the beat with Yamaguchi by his side, scrolling on his phone.

In his previous life, he had ever only talked to Kiyoko seriously four times.

The first time was around the time when the third-years were graduating. Kiyoko had found him about to enter the gymnasium for some quick practice, and he'd grown super awkward when he noticed her standing behind him and… staring.

"Shimizu-sempai!" He'd greeted, straightening up.

"Kageyama-kun," Kiyoko had replied, before getting straight to the point. "I wanted to say… say thank you."

"For what?" Kageyama immediately questioned back, confused. He kept his peripherals on alert, just in case Noya or Tanaka were going to skid around the corner and see this vaguely confession-like scenario. He wasn't suicidal, thank you very much.

"You and Hinata… and everyone from first year really bolstered the team's spirit," Kiyoko said. "We went to nationals because of the team we made this year. You were part of what gave Daichi, Sugawara, Asahi and me… their dream. Thank you."

Kageyama, half-way through, recognised a fellow awkward-member of society by the half-rehearsed tone of the speech. By that, he deduced that he was probably not the only one Kiyoko was going to approach to thank today. He also realised that as cool and collected Kiyoko was, she wasn't the type to feel comfortable with overt expressions of emotion.

Ah, a comrade.

"It wasn't my effort alone, sempai," Kageyama replied honestly. "I should be thanking all of you instead." It was their guidance and ability to tolerate him, adjust to his character and temper, let him play, support and teach him, and most importantly, accept him that made him the player he was now. There was still growth left. There were still victories left unwon. "Thank you!"

He bowed back, and Kiyoko obviously got flustered, stepped back, bowed quickly, and started quickly walking away.

Kageyama stood there for two seconds thinking how lucky he'd been to get accepted into Karasuno before stiffening. Wait a second! He'd been wanting to practice his spikes!

"Wait, Shimizu-sempai!"

"Hmm, Kageyama-kun?"

"If you have time, can you toss for me please? Only a few tosses!" He insisted, thinking maybe a few cartfuls of volleyballs weren't _that_ many.

"Ah, umm…"

Kageyama held no offence at how quickly Kiyoko declined and ran away. Surely she had lots of things to do, having just graduated. Kageyama just sighed a little in his heart, but resolved himself to practice his serves instead.

Then Hinata barged in halfway through the casket of volleyballs, and demanded tosses. The rest of the team filed through a little after that, just after graduation, to play one last game together. Yachi cried on the sidelines, and everyone got super emotional as the third years gave small speeches, and recounted how they took Nationals.

Then they'd all left to eat dinner. Ukai tearfully footed the bill, half sentimental and half from wondering where teenage boys _put_ it all. Certainly not their brain.

In his memory, Kiyoko smiled on the sides, fending off Noya and Tanaka with professionalism, chatted with Yachi, and at the end with a snap of a photo, stood on the side with them all with a flash of an urchin grin.

  


* * *

  


And it was the same Kiyoko. Her smile was still just as warm, her eyes still that slate grey-blue and rounded in a heart-shaped face. This little girl would grow up into the classical beauty he remembered, sharp, awkward and kind all at once.

Kageyama's hands trembled as he carefully held the screen right at eye-level. It was nearly too bright, within the dark, the daytime on the screen. In the video, Kiyoko's chubby four-year old cheeks belied how sharp her gaze was. It was strange to see Kiyoko without glasses. 

Kiyoko was wearing a modern looking sundress, bright blue from what he could see on the straps of her shoulders. She looked well fed and well rested, and Kageyama breathed an inner sigh of relief.

The video jostled as the tiny Kiyoko on the screen started trekking through a forest.

"It's been a long time, Kageyama," Kiyoko was saying, and Kageyama nodded, leaning closer to the screen to see more. The trees around her were very different to his own forest – her forest was darker and gloomier, with very little underbrush underneath and an extremely thick canopy that only let certain strands of sunlight filter through between rare gaps in the trees. His forest had tall trees too, but also thick branches and sparse leaves that made it bright and cheerful. It made Kiyoko's features darker than they could've been and Kageyama had to squint when Kiyoko walked into spots of shadow.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," Kiyoko continued, smiling slightly at him. "This recording doesn't have enough time to answer them all. So first, I will say that... if you had any doubts before, yes, we are in a different world. Second, is that we are not alone. From what I see, many people we know landed here after reincarnation. Whether this was coincidence or something more, I cannot answer yet."

Kiyoko fell into silence when she stepped into a clearing, and in the corner of the screen Kageyama saw a small waterfall where she promptly sat cross-legged. 

"You know magic exists here?" Kiyoko asked in that particular way of hers, speaking clear and quick. Decisive, having already prepared what to say. "I was lucky enough to be born with the ability to see the future. In that, I saw you, Kageyama. Suga, Daichi, some of my own friends, Yachi…" She kicked her feet in the water a little, cradling the recorder in her palms. After a short pause, she added "Hinata too. You'd want to know that. They're… a lot of them are here."

Kageyama paused, heart stilling.

"My mother here sent something alongside this recording. It's a... you will have a divine blessing because of it. This recording doesn't have enough memory to really explain what divine blessings are, but know that it's very powerful, Kageyama. Sorry for not warning you about it, but... it's something that, if you choose to go out, a lot of people may want to use you for it." Kiyoko blinked, pausing, and Kageyama's heart clenched at the sheer _familiarity_ of her half-recited tone as she continued. "You have a choice right now. If you accept it, if you follow it… it'll lead you to us. The people who knew you _before_. But if you do… it's also very dangerous. So I understand if you do nothing with this blessing and stay in your village. You'll be safe."

"But if you do accept," Kiyoko said, accidentally kicking too much water and splashing some on the recorder. She hurriedly wiped it away, and gave an apologetic smile to Kageyama as she continued. "If you accept, then tomorrow morning gather your supplies. Go down the mountain towards the desert, into the town there. You'll know what to do next."

"Whatever you do, Kageyama, know that I wish you the best. Thank you for listening to me." Kiyoko gave one last smile before the projection flickered out of existence. The slate dimmed in a small black tablet again, and Kageyama was left sitting on his tiny straw pallet, in his dirt hut in a settling, quiet darkness. A few stunned moments of silence later, he pressed the button and watched it all again.

Kiyoko. She was... Kageyama's fingers gripped the tablet. She was _real_.

( _"So we're out there somewhere?"_ Tsukishima murmured. _"Interesting…"_ )

And she had said everyone from _before_ was also here.

( _"Oh man, I bet I'm a super cool wizard, Kageyama!"_ Hinata shouted excitedly, vibrating with excitement).

Hah. A smile started to curl up his lips, the type that Hinata had always, always cringed away from. _Unnatural!_ Hinata would hiss, jumping away to hide behind the nearest succulent or whatever and Kageyama let out a small laugh at the memory. Choice?

What choice?

Kageyama carefully hugged the tablet to his chest as he went to the corner where he kept his pillow.

"Goodnight," he said into the air, allowing himself a little self-indulgence before rolling to sleep on his side.

 _"Good night, Kageyama!"_ Tanaka replied, the one to lead the goodnight that night. Kageyama let himself feel a bit of warmth at the reply instead of ignoring it. He felt the corners of the tablet dig into his arms, and let the small persistent smile lead him into sleep.

Early next morning, he took a small potato sack. He put all that he had in there – a few sheets of paper, the rest of his food, Kiyoko's tablet and the one wooden doll his parents had left for him. The sack had weave that was rough enough that he could stick some braided fishing wire through, letting him draw it closed. With the line left, he tied the sack to an old wooden fishing pole that no-one had use for.

Then he crept out of his house, closing the door shut silently. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Kageyama turned left down the main road towards the side of the village that had once faced the sea.

The sun touched the horizon when he reached the path down to the desert, illuminating vast swathes of salt and sand that stretched on to the horizon with no end in sight.

 _"You ready, Kageyama?"_ Suga asked kindly. And although he knew better, Kageyama responded.

"I promise I'll find you. Every single one of you."

 _"I'm sure you can do it,"_ Asahi reassured, kindness ever in his tone. _"You can do anything you put your mind to, Kageyama."_

Kageyama heaved in a deep breath and tried not to let the words comfort him as he started the trek downwards.

  


* * *

  


With no trees nor clouds, the sun burnt unrelentingly hot. The sun absorbed through the soles of his sandals straight into his heels. He was dripping sweat before mid-day.

To distract himself, Kageyama reminisced, as that was easier than watching the endless salt-bushes pass by, or the dried husks of delicate fish bone that still crunched underneath his feet as he walked. Autumn was coming soon, but summer clung to the world like it was reluctant to let go.

But that was one of the things in this world has going for it, Kageyama acceded, not letting the sun stop him from looking up and appreciating the sheer azure expanse of the sky, letting himself feel the tug of his heart from the view that yelled _free_. This world was so clean. The sky was spectacular. It reminded him of milder walks back in Miyagi, a slightly cloudier, smoggier sky that shone clear compared to Tokyo. He could imagine the burnt smell of diesel from a passing motorbike, the creak of a squeaky bicycle wheel walking in tandem with him.

It was a memory before they decided to move out of their town, planning for a larger life. University exams had been hard, but through Yamaguchi, Yachi and an unenthusiastic Tsukishima's collective efforts, Hinata's sheer mind-breaking work and Kageyama's sport scholarships, they'd gotten through by the skin of their teeth.

They'd been eighteen and young. Dreams in their pockets, eyes on the stars.

"Hey. Kageyama."

"Hn?" Kageyama grunted in response, looking away from the mountain that Hinata biked over every day to school. The mountain had always been a slightly distant loom on the near horizon, just something to stare at from the school window. Kageyama wondered if biking the mountain every day would give him extra stamina. Maybe that was the secret to finally breaking their stalemate. Hmmm…

"Kageyama, are you listening to me?"

Kageyama's eyes lit up as he mentally revisited his timetable. School was over, so he could bike if he wanted to! His tosses had gotten a lot of sport magazine coverage, but he still had to work on that serve Yamaguchi had started teaching him. Maybe he could ask for a few of his teammates to train with him? Well, until university, anyway…

"Bakayama!"

Hinata jumped right in front of him way too close, his face right in front of his in a determined glare and forcing him to stumble back.

"What?" He barked in annoyance. "If you're going to say something, just say it, dumbass!" He moved to whap his head, but Hinata had long experience with this and wasn't stupid, okay. He ducked away, which wasn't that hard because he'd grown since they first met, but not enough to catch up to Kageyama's chin because Kageyama had grown too.

Something Kageyama liked rubbing in his face, of course.

"Hey, I called your name like, three times!" Hinata put his hand on his hips and glowered, irritated. It was _Kageyama_ who suddenly went aggressive! It wasn't his fault! "You're the stupid one!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you are!"

"Ah," a flat voice came from behind them, "look, Yamaguchi. Children unattended on the street." There was a mumble then, to a companion, which prompted immediate swift laughter. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima passed them on the way to the Ukai's shop, Yamaguchi stifling snickers while Tsukishima smirked.

Hinata immediately puffed up like a cat, his eyes narrowing. "I am not a kid!" He yelled, still obviously offended at their last Karasuno team outing to the amusement park, and getting offered all the child prices. "Come back, Tsukishima! I'm gonna get revenge!"

"Oh, do you want me to slow down for you? I'm not so sure your short legs are… enough to keep up with mine," Tsukishima yawned, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, and that was when Hinata blew up.

Hinata started roaring for "Tsukishima, you bastard, _I'LL SHOW YOU SLOW,"_ and raced after the blonde, leaving his bike behind with Kageyama. Again. Kageyama impassively wondered whether Hinata would ever stop reacting to Tsukishima's height jabs.

Never, probably.

Kageyama watched as the three of them ran down the street – Tsukishima loping, as if not wanting to admit he was having any sort of fun, Yamaguchi following for the heck of it, and Hinata in offended fury. Well, Kageyama sighed, that was one train of thought effectively ruined. Hinata in a nutshell really.

So Kageyama resigned himself to thinking about training regimes a little later, picked up Hinata's bike and started walking it down to the shop. The handlebars were a bit low for him, but it was nice and familiar to sling his bag into the basket with Hinata's and move down the familiar street to Coach Ukai's shop. He daydreamed about some sneakers he saw the other day. He wondered about what Hinata had been trying to tell him before Tsukishima had interrupted.

"What was it?" Kageyama asked later, after their team dinner had passed. They'd all escorted Yachi to the bus stop by then, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi having left the other way while Kageyama waited for Hinata to finish fiddling with his bike. Hinata's bright head of hair tilted in confusion, indicating to Kageyama he was listening.

"What's what?" Hinata's voice had deepened only a little, maybe. When it wasn't overly enthusiastic as the tone when he was on court 'Kageyama, toss! Toss! Toss to me! _Why aren't you tossing to me?'_ , it was strangely inquisitive and animated. It fascinated Kageyama to no end, sometimes, that he could do that. Kageyama always sounded either monotonous or angry.

Shifting to another foot, Kageyama started fidgeting, as his brain started complaining that it was _Hinata_ that started the conversation… before. "Ugh," he finally burst out, "Before the dinner!" Kageyama exclaimed, waving an arm to emphasise, and Hinata only scrunched up his face in suspicion, finally glancing up.

"What's what? Kageyama, are you getting old already? Is your memory going strange just from graduating high school?"

This boy was ridiculous, Kageyama thought with a down-turned twist of his mouth.

"Which idiot was the one who nearly _failed_ their university admission again?" Kageyama smiled pleasantly (teeth bared, eyes glinting, the works), his hand trying to grab Hinata's head and squashing it into as tight a grip as possible, only for Hinata to duck away in the last minute. He had been getting way too good at that, lately. Kageyama couldn't be getting slow, could he?

"Hey! You only beat me by two points! Anyway, what did you mean? Kageyama?" Hinata's voice calmed down a little to a pitch more serious at the end, and Kageyama acquiesced and reluctantly drew his hand back. As much as they were unchanged from when they first came to Karasuno, even more _had_ changed. They had been the bulwark of the team, the upper-class men, and Coach Ukai had beat them up enough to know how to communicate with each other. Hinata wasn't a bad friend to have, in the end.

"You were trying to get my attention," Kageyama said slowly, "before we started arguing. Before dinner," Kageyama then added, reminding himself they argued at least three times during dinner and so it was admittedly vague.

Hinata put on his thinking face, a face that Kageyama thought looked excessively dumb.  
He told that to Hinata. Hinata punched him in the side, before returning to the task of tightening the seat of his bicycle.

"Where I called your name a few times?" Hinata replied, oddly subdued. Then the pause dragged on, and Kageyama worried about how the mountain tracks would be completely dark if Hinata didn't get moving on soon.

"Yeah. Then Tsukishima and Yamaguchi came."

"Ah, that." Hinata's ears turned a little pinkish, as he glanced at the two bags that were still in his bicycle's hand basket. "Well, that was nothing important!"

Aaaand… the thing about being partners for three years, is that you get close even if you don't want to. Not that he didn't want to, nowadays. They were best friends for a reason. In the silence of them both knowing that Hinata's lie was completely and utterly weak, Kageyama waited for Hinata to come clean. He knew, somewhat, that he still intimidated Hinata sometimes because Hinata had never been good at hiding things. Why Hinata always expected the worst of his temper even after years of knowing each other, Kageyama would never know. Was his face really that scary?

He put that thought for later, and pinned his gaze on Hinata now, who was desperately adjusting his bike as fast as possible.

Huh.

"You're lying. Why?" Kageyama asked, genuinely confused.

"Haha, see you, Kageyama!" Hinata used his laugh to distract Kageyama, swinging a leg over his bike as he launched his bag back at him, making him stumble back a step when Hinata started his bicycle with ease, already streaking towards the darker lit roads of the mountainside.

Kageyama never did get what Hinata had wanted to say back then. He regretted it a little afterwards, since if it had been important to Hinata, then it was important to him too.

After leaving Miyagi and all the familiarity it stood for, he and Hinata had been inseparable, all the way through the years until the end – not roommates, because that would have driven them insane even before the first hour, but next door in the dorm blocks. Similar classes sometimes, when there were free electives, and when they shared classes they shared notes and cursed at each other's crappy note-taking. They played volleyball together in their free time, making up new tricks and formations, bickered every half an hour, and went home with snacks on hand. Sharing a crappy apartment for cheaper rent (and going insane before Sugawara stepped in).

No matter how many strong players he faced, no matter where he went to compete, he could never leave behind Hinata's influence on his volleyball, and volleyball had been his _life_. 

Kageyama had been scouted, Hinata had finally found a career he'd wanted to dedicate himself to, and they had started a new chapter of their lives…

Sweat dripped down his forehead, and Kageyama glared upwards.

Now, he slowly trekked down this salt-stained, barren mountain side as the too-big sandals on his feet flapped on and off his soles. Uncaring if he tripped on a random rock or bush, Kageyama kept looking up. Up and up and up, into a sky that didn't smell of wisps of passing petrol, that wasn't filled with annoying, incessant chatter. When he closed his eyes and pretended, his elbow didn't brush anything warm.

( _"We're here, Kageyama,"_ Daichi spoke out. _"You can rely on us."_ )

( _"Yeah!"_ Hinata chimed. _"Come on, Bakayama! I'm still here, aren't I?"_ )

Kageyama's breath hiccupped before he took a moment to breathe, pulling out the tablet from his bag and pressing the button.

"Hello Kageyama, "Kiyoko's voice filtered from the screen. "It's been a long time. I'm sure you have a lot of questions…"

  


* * *

  


Kageyama reached the town at the bottom of the mountain late afternoon, and just like he expected, it was a ghost town. He'd come here before, but only once. It was a small resting post for traders that were insane enough to try crossing the desert their direction, and was literally just one street large. All it had was a small unmanned inn, a few abandoned huts, and a few posts to tie any animals that people might've brought with them.

Kageyama wasn't the one scared of ghosts (Hinata was), but even he felt uncomfortable surrounded by the empty buildings. But after scouring through all five of the abandoned buildings and finding nothing special, Kageyama pulled a face.

This was it right?

Replaying Kiyoko's message just in case: 'Go down the mountain towards the desert, into the town there. You'll know what to do next'.

So here he was in the town, but nothing was really telling him what to do next. Kageyama stared down at the screen, trying to buoy the sinking feeling in his chest.

( _"You don't know yet,"_ Ennoshita said calmly. _"Calm down, wait a little."_ )

He headed into the inn to wait. Replayed Kiyoko's recording a few times. Tried not to listen to the conversations in his head. He waited there until the sun started setting on the other side of the mountain, painting the sky a vague fiery purple. _"A little more, Kageyama!"_ Yachi encouraged. _"It's only been a day!"_

"There's no-one coming," Kageyama replied, stepping out and staring at the brilliant sunset. "I should go back up and come back tomorrow."

 _"As long as you're not giving up,"_ she said happily, before giving a small gasp. _"Wait, Kageyama! Look back! What's that?"_

Kageyama was turning around before he paused and squinted at the horizon.

There. A small figure.

Kageyama's heart caught in his throat.

As the figure grew closer, they noticed him standing there too, and moved quicker. Slowly, the small blur turned into a person wrapped in a light grey cloak, holding a heavy backpack. They trod through the sand surprisingly quickly, considering the direction they came from.

"Hello," the traveller greeted when they were near enough, slowing down. "Where am I? I'm afraid I got a little lost going over the desert." The traveller thumped his bag onto the ground with a grateful sigh, rolling his shoulders.

"This place doesn't have a name," Kageyama replied, hands clenching into his shirt as he tried not to be too obvious trying to look past the head wrap the traveller had on. His voice was familiar. It was familiar.

"Really?" The traveller replied with a put upon sigh. "Dammit, Nekomata! ’Cross the desert! You won't need a map to get to the Capital! It's _destiny_ ,' he says. Should've known everything he says is a load of crap. Destiny my ass."

Kageyama blinked, trying not to believe his ears.

( _"Nekomata? As in, Nekoma's coach Nekomata?"_ Narita echoed in disbelief.)

"I'm sorry for bothering you," the traveller addressed him now, and he could hear a smile on his voice. "I'm not being frustrated at you, don't worry! This is an outpost, right? Do you have any water here? I'm nearly out." The traveller took out a large water skin and flapped it around to demonstrate. "Look how sad it is. It's so empty. Like an inedible wrinkly raisin."

Kageyama uncurled his fingers from his shirt and nodded, before turning around to lead the traveller to the inn. He'd left his sack there anyway.

"You don't talk much do you?" The stranger cheerfully asked. "No worries, I can hold my own in conversation. I can talk about riveting stuff for hours, like the weather. It's a tad hot here, isn't it? I should've travelled at night, but I was getting so close to the mountains I just thought, man, stuff it, and I just continued forwards. Well, it was farther than I expected but I'm here right before sunset, which is pretty good, if you ask me," the traveller chattered happily behind him.

( _"Reply, Kageyama,"_ Suga reminded him, laughing a little.)

"Uh. Yes," Kageyama replied stiffly.

The traveller chuckled over his awkwardness, before making a face and complaining how dry his throat was.

When they entered the dim space of the inn, and Kageyama gestured to the pump that drew water from a cache of groundwater, the traveller groaned in relief. "Is this water? Is this shade? You have no idea how I've been longing for some nice indoor time," the traveller continued companionably as he pumped up water to refill his skin, drinking his fill, before unwrapping his head.

When the traveller shook his head free, Kageyama stopped breathing.

"My name's Sugawara Koushi," the boy in front of him grinned. "Nice to meet you! What's your name?"

Sugawara's grey hair was a bit longer than he'd ever seen it, and his skin was much darker than whatever his memories had told him. When they shook hands, his palm was full of weird callouses too. But, just like Kiyoko… his smile was still the same. Kageyama let his own smile wobble up too, and hoped it didn't look too deranged.

( _"Well… that's trippy,"_ Suga said, sounding way too amused. _"Doesn't seem to recognise you though, other me."_ )

"Kageyama Tobio," Kageyama choked out, uncurling his shoulders to stand straight. "Nice to meet you too!"

"Kageyama, are you travelling too?" Sugawara continued after a huge gulp of water, nodding at his makeshift sack. "Where to?"

And abruptly, Kageyama knew what he had to do.

"I'm going to the Capital too," Kageyama lied. "I'll lead you there. We can travel together."

Sugawara blinked in surprise. "Well, seems like score one for destiny. Are you sure, Kageyama? I don't want to be a bother."

Kageyama gave an emphatic nod, not trusting his voice. Or his words. He didn't want to say something wrong now.

This new Sugawara glanced out the doorway, before giving Kageyama a self-deprecating chuckle. "Well, it's dark now, and I've been walking all day. Can we set off tomorrow morning? This place seems comfortable enough." Glancing around the small inn, which was really just a one room affair with the water basin and a few rolled pallets put on a small shelf, Kageyama nodded in agreement. It wasn't as if his own hut was any better.

"Its fine," Kageyama said out loud, when Sugawara tilted his head for express confirmation and not just a nod, just like… before.

"Thanks Kageyama. Now please excuse me."

And promptly, Sugawara left his bag next to the water basin and quickly unrolled one of the straw pallets before collapsing on it, leaving Kageyama to stare at how quickly the snores started rolling. He must have been really tired, Kageyama decided, as he pulled out a pallet of his own and rolled it out a few paces away from Sugawara.

_He doesn't remember._

( _"Are you okay, Kageyama?"_ Yachi asked, always the worry-wart.)

_It's fine._

Actually… it was more than fine.

"Good night," he said out into the air. The usual chorus of goodnights echoed in his head, led by Ennoshita today until…

"Yeah, good night," Sugawara sleepily mumbled to his left.

Kageyama smiled.

  


* * *

  


Kageyama dreamed.

Like all dreams, it begins with volleyball, and Kageyama lets himself be drawn into the clean squeak of polished floorboards, its grain yellow and nostalgic. In its waxed reflection, he sees himself holding a familiar ball; the plastic firm underneath his fingers, surprisingly light. He grips it, and his fingers are long and unfamiliar all at once. They're familiar, in a nostalgic way. Like feeling an old photo. His hands had grown _so large_. Outside the gym, a car honks.

"Yo, Kageyama!" A voice calls. Kageyama looks up, and sees Hinata with Yamaguchi on the court, ready. They'd obviously been practicing serves – and Hinata couldn't get the jump-float at all, the dumbass. It's obvious when his face falls into a loud _'Awwwwww'_ when the ball lands outside the lines.

"Idiot," Kageyama just gripes, walking over to them. Their smiles are wide and familiar. "You're holding your shoulders too tensely. Yamaguchi, show it to him again."

"Yes, yes," Yamaguchi smiles good-naturedly, and Kageyama wondered where Tsukishima was. "I can't believe I actually came when you two called me in to get some more holiday practice! Hehe, I don't even officially play anymore."

Hinata grins loose and happy when he slaps Yamaguchi on the back. "Well, Kageyama hasn't played in a long time, and I missed his tosses! It's like _baaam_ and _gwooosh_ ," Hinata gestures from right to left, bouncing to invigorate his point. "No matter how many plays we have now, that quick is still my favourite!"

"A long time?" Kageyama frowns, absent-mindedly tossing the ball in his hands into the air, preparing to toss it to Hinata, a few steps away. "Our last game was just—"

And then the whole gym _melts_ , the volleyball slips through his hands, and they're suddenly standing in front of a tiny frost-bitten field on top of a mountain. If they crest the next slope, they'd be nearly touching clouds. Kageyama is eleven years old again, and staring down at the world alone. There's a huge S-shaped river down the slopes, and even so far away it glitters. It's beautiful, in a cold, distant sort of way. He's hungry, but he's lasted until his stomach had gnawed itself numb before, so it was okay. He knows he shouldn't sit here in the cold, should get back inside. But moving takes energy, and right now he has none to spare. Sitting outside always felt better than staring at the walls of his hut anyway, and he tucks his chin into his arms for warmth.

Kageyama remembers this, last year.

Winters were always harsh.

"So this is where you live now?" Yamaguchi asks, curious. His freckles are nearly invisible in the poor lighting – storm clouds were going to roll in heavy that night and drown the winter crops. "Wow, the view is beautiful! And the air is so clean!" He breathes it in, before eyeing him. "Hey, Kageyama, won't you dream Tsukki up? I think he'd like this too!"

"No," Kageyama replies shortly with a grimace. Why would he _voluntarily_ dream up Tsukishima?

Yamaguchi had never laughed loudly in his life, and watching Yamaguchi curl his shoulders for a small snicker made his scowl falter past a growing lump in his throat.

Behind him, Hinata laughs bright and happy. "Man, oh man, Kageyama, hey, did you realise?"

"What?" Kageyama turns, grumping automatically.

 _"I'm taller than you."_ Hinata leans his arm on Kageyama's shoulder to whisper in his ear, leaning all his twenty-something weight onto his eleven year old shoulders. "For the first time in my life, I'm taller than you, Kageyama! Wow, this dream is _so great_ you don't understand."

"Get off, you dumbass!"

"Eep! No, Kageyama, get away! Tanaka, where are you?" Hinata races away, down the mountain towards the river, an orange blur down the scrabbly bush and rocks. As he fades into the distance, Kageyama has to choke back a yell.

'Don't go,' he wouldn't say. 'Don't leave me here alone.'

Hinata disappears as he runs away. Kageyama glares downwards, eyes hard and shiny.

Yamaguchi's hand touches his head, fleetingly. They'd become closer friends, later on in the years. Maybe it was just Yamaguchi's years of laughing and dealing with Tsukishima – he'd dealt with Kageyama's own awkwardness first with nervousness, then understanding. "When are you going to find us?" Yamaguchi asks, his voice contemplative and a little lost.

But before he could answer, Kageyama woke up, blinking rapidly in panic when all he touched when he reached out was the dark, the bone of his heels scraping dirt as he twisted, his eyes looking at the straw roof, the gaps that let the chill settle into his lungs with voices that he could never touch. His breath hitched, Kageyama _knowing_ what was coming, but not able to stop the hyperventilation from starting, hitching tighter, softer, shallower because _this was his reality he was alone—_

( _"Look to your left,"_ came Tsukishima's curt voice.)

Kageyama's neck wouldn't obey him. Maybe, he didn't want to. In the dark, it was too easy to imagine that they weren't dreams. All of them.

( _"Stop being stupid and look,"_ Tsukishima ordered this time, stern.)

Kageyama looked. Then, he reached shaking fingers over a small gap and touched Sugawara's sleeve.

Slowly, unblinking, he let his heart rate calm. Unclenched his lungs with sheer force of will. Then, curling to the left, he let the sound of another person lull him back to, if not sleep, then at least peace.

  


* * *

  


_Extras  
Kageyama loves milk, and many variations of milk. Once, he heard about this modern milk-tea craze was interested enough to try it out. However, when he mixed his carefully mixed green tea with milk, he felt so guilty about ruining a DISTILLED CUP OF JAPANESE CULTURE that he never tried again, even though he (secretly) kinda liked it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this for fun so please don't judge too harshly. As I'm trying to fit writing again in my life, its harder than expected for me to find writing a habit @_@. I've always wanted to challenge myself by writing something fantasy ish, but as I'm still a new bean, I apologise for any inconsistencies.  
> Kageyama is very lonely in this fic, but I'll try make it a little better soon haha.  
> Please feel free to comment on anything!  
> (I have a soul of a tofu though, so please be nice if you do)


	2. The Meeting of Sugawara Koushi

  


#### The Meeting of Sugawara Koushi

  
On the night Kageyama was going to move out of his parent's house for the first time, out of nerves he visited Suga. Caught a train and a bus, and knocked on his apartment door. Sugawara opened the door with first curious expectation, then an amused chagrin when he saw Kageyama.

"Excuse me!" Kageyama exclaimed as he toed off his shoes. "I'm sorry for visiting so late in the night!"

Suga welcomed him with a smile and a cup of hot tea before he glanced at the clock and blandly remarked, "Kageyama, you do know you have a phone, don't you?"

 _Oh right_ , Kageyama's face said. Suga sighed dully into his tea.

However, what's done was done, so Kageyama breathed deep and got to the point.

"I feel nervous leaving home," Kageyama confessed, curling his fingers around the heavy clay of the cup. Suga always giving the traditional cups to his guests. "And then I couldn't sleep."

After a few beats of silence, Suga prodded, "And you were wondering…?"

Kageyama shrugged, suddenly feeling ridiculous for how he'd bothered Suga on a whim. Retrospection was 100%, as always. "How to transition well, I guess," he answered, out of the side of his mouth, feeling more than a little silly now.

"You guess?" Sugawara echoed. "You travelled all the way here just to ask _that_?"

At Sugawara's face, Kageyama duly reflected on the mobile phone that laid forgotten underneath a pile of unused textbooks. Sorry, phone. He'd use you next time.

Sugawara rolled his eyes and leaned back to think on the question. "Well, if you're asking me how I moved out, all I asked myself was how I could make myself comfortable in this new dorm. I mean, that's what a home is right, a place to feel safe and comfortable in." Suga shrugged his shoulders and glanced across the table, but Kageyama had already started digesting his words, staring hard at the table as his brain tugged at that comment, broke it apart.

A rap on his head broke his concentration. "And you're staying the night" Sugawara grinned, a wry twist of the mouth. "It's a bit late, and I have the space."

"Ah… Thank you, Suga-san!"

All Suga did was chuckle, before leaning over the table for some gossip on how the others were doing.  
  


* * *

  
When Kageyama woke up the next morning, his neck was a solid cramp from his shoulder up to his ear and the pre-dawn sunlight left the room of the inn grey and empty. Kageyama yawned, before his heart leapt in his chest in panic.

…Empty?

He scrambled up, his ears full with the sudden clamour of surprised voices inside his head asking him what was wrong. Ignoring them, he scanned the room, noting that the other pallet had been rolled up and put back onto the shelf, but his bag was still next to the basin… right next to Sugawara's bag.

Kageyama's shoulders drooped in relief as he stepped outside.

"Sugawara?" Kageyama called out. 

"Up here!" came a voice… from above?

Kageyama squinted up, only to notice that there was a figure sitting on top of the inn's roof in a meditative pose, comfortingly familiar when they stood up, patted off their pants and jumped straight down from the roof. The little thump his leather sandals made on the dirt road was all the proof that Sugawara had just leaped down from a height of at least five metres without hesitation at all, without needing a roll or anything, and Kageyama tried not to gape. Did... did this Sugawara do parkour or something?

When Sugawara did a stretch, hidden muscles rippled. Kageyama… tried not to stare. Much.

( _"Damn Suga, did you shoot steroids?"_ Tanaka said with admiring awe. _"I want that bod man."_

Suga chuckled back a _"Me too, Tanaka. Man, I look good._ ")

In the bright daylight, Sugawara was a weirdly built gangly teen beanpole, who grinned a grin that showed his whole rack of teeth and squinted his eyes shut against the sun as he attempted to see Kageyama properly. They smiled the same, tilted their head the same, and even rolled their shoulders a little the same way, demeanour slightly impish. This Suga gave him a small wave in greeting before blocking a yawn with his hand.

Kageyama couldn't help but smile. Maybe this quest thing Kiyoko gave him wasn't going to be so hard. He'd started yesterday, and already found Suga, of all people.

He'd _found Suga_.

An uncontrollable smile twitched across his face.

"Good morning, Kageyama!" Sugawara greeted, going inside the hut and holding the flaps open for him. Kageyama absently noted that the text floating above his head said _[?]_.

"Good morning, Sugawara," he replied back, following him back inside. Now that Sugawara had shed his cloak, Kageyama noted that he had some type of weird armoured hakama worn with a rather informal light blue men's kimono, which made the scene all the more surreal because now he felt slightly underdressed in his ragged t-shirt, shorts and floppy sandals. Kageyama spent the few seconds wishing he could've made a better impression to this Suga (last time his arguments with Hinata and the vice-principals' toupee didn't exactly make Suga think he was a nice, untroublesome person right?).

Oh well. Nothing to be done now.

Inside, they packed up their bags in silence – Sugawara checked over his stuff and stockpiling water. He had ten waterskins, comparatively to Kageyama's zero, and Kageyama helped fill them all, pumping hard when the water started flowing slower up the pipes. When he did his own inventory, he took one of the thin pallets in the inn. It wasn't as if anyone used them much.

Afterwards, he picked up his sack and fishing rod, and let Sugawara have his peace by waiting outside.

Cloudy today, he absently noted, as the sun rose and lit up the rows and rows of slight cloud that peeked on the other side of the mountain range. The desert sky on their side was clear as ever.

( _"Good thing too,"_ chimed in Yamaguchi. _"This is really nice hiking weather! Other Suga seems to pack lots of water, but dehydration is still risky so be careful!" )_

Yeah, he needed a water bottle or something.

( _"More than that, Kageyama,"_ was Daichi, all wry. _"Your bag's practically empty."_ )

Also true.

( _"Oh it's fine guys,"_ Asahi assured, _"this world's Suga will probably share some of his water. He'll take care of Kageyama so he doesn't die from a lack of survival instincts._ ")

...Oi. Kageyama narrowed his eyes, and Asahi gave a small _hehe_ in return, totally unrepentant.

By the time all that happened, Sugawara had hefted up his pack on his back, all wrapped up in his cloak and prepared to travel.

"So you're heading to the Capital too, right? What do you have to do there, Kageyama?"

Following you? Was the answer Kageyama choked down, because even he realised that might be kind of creepy.

( _"Pfft, no kidding,_ " Tsukishima snickered.)

Shut up, Kageyama growled back.

( _"Shhh, not helping,"_ Daichi interjected. _"Maybe say that you've always wanted to go to the Capital? I mean, it's that dark smudge in the distance you always look at right? It's not a lie."_ )

"I've always wanted to go to the Capital," Kageyama parroted.

New-Suga blinked at him really slowly, and Kageyama immediately knew he didn't believe him. Ugh. Lying was hard. "Really?" Sugawara doubtfully mused, as they started their slow trek up the mountain. "But it's so far away. I heard a friend say that the Capital is like, nearly a month away from the mountain range." Kageyama didn't miss how Sugawara's eyes slid to his pitifully small make-shift sack and fishing-pole combo, and added, "It's a bit far for an impromptu trip too, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Kageyama inadvertently agreed before stopping short. Uh, "I also want to travel because…"

 _"Something Kiyoko said might help,"_ Ennoshita urged, and Kageyama reached for the black tablet in his sack and pulled it out, and noted that Sugawara… seemed to narrow his eyes at it? _"That blessing they gave you is probably a good reason to start adventuring. It sounded kind of important? That'll convince him, probably."_

 _"Nice, Ennoshita!"_ A series of backslaps followed. 

"This is a recording device that was given to me by a witch," Kageyama explained. "They gave me this blessing thing, and so I thought it was a good time to leave the village."

A pause. Sugawara's warm brown eyes flickered over him for a second, before his lips pushed up.

"Blessing thing?" Sugawara echoed him with an amused smirk, his brown eyes slightly teasing.

The next thing he knew, Suga would sigh at him in exasperation. Question his life choices over a ridiculously spicy lunch or dinner. Share something funny to fill his own awkward silences.

 _"He's not me, Kageyama,"_ Suga said, slightly sad.

Kageyama deemed not to reply, getting distracted when Sugawara hummed in reply, head tilted in thought. "I… may have an idea what you're talking about. But hey, Kageyama," he said with a light laugh, pointing to Kiyoko's tablet. "Next time don't show this so easily to strangers." Sugawara plucked the black tablet from his hands and eyed it critically, before dropping it into his sack and drawing it closed, eyeing the fishing wire with curiosity before smiling and tying it with a flourish anyways. "Let's go then, shall we?"

Wheeling around, Sugawara increased his pace up the mountain, and with a mystified stare, Kageyama followed.

So… did he pass Sugawara's suspicion test or no?  


  


* * *

  
The thing is, Sugawara Koushi and Kageyama Tobio were friends, yes, but they didn't actually start _really_ talking until after Sugawara had gone to university and all the first years became second years. It started off as a mentorship role thing where Kageyama asked for setting tips, but slowly morphed into weekly café sessions where Sugawara guzzled coffee in a really, really unhealthy-looking fashion 'haha, Kageyama, this is just what all uni-kids do, don't worry' and lectured him on life.

Or more like, his emotional life choices.

Kageyama would begrudgingly admit, back then, that maybe he wasn't the most emotionally astute person.

"Kageyama," he remembered Sugawara frowning, massaging his temples. "Don't tell me you actually went into another texting war with Oikawa. He dislikes you, you don't really like him either, so why don't you just be the bigger person and let it go?"

Kageyama slumped deeper into his chair, and the wooden slats dug into his back. So he sat back up again, and wondered how Sugawara always somehow got the softer, padded seats that lined the walls before him. They looked comfortable too, all stylish red leather and cat patterned seat cushions. The café they liked favoured a softer cuter décor that most would consider quite frilly and girly, but Suga swore by this place's coffee, so here they went.

"…He just keeps _replying,_ " Kageyama replied to the table, mulish. "Then I just have to reply back."

"And then it makes you all angry before practice, which leads Hinata to come complaining to me," Sugawara patiently continued, voice ever pleasant. "I'd be totally fine with you re-establishing contact with Oikawa if it didn't lead to other team-members calling me with complaints, Kageyama."

Kageyama was not pouting. He _wasn't_.

"But… he was replying," Kageyama replied stubbornly, his eyes pulled to the side where he tracked a fly which had landed on the other table and watched it like it was the most fascinating fly in the world. Which it was. Ooh, it flew to the wall. Fascinating. "I couldn't _lose._ "

"Do you know I'm friends with Iwaizumi now?" Sugawara changed the topic, as he hailed the waitress for his third cup of jumbo sized coffee. Kageyama eyed the extra-large mug as it was set down – that couldn't have been healthy. "You're remain as one of the few people who could make Oikawa _seriously_ pissed off. We complain to each other. We also both wonder why you guys bother texting each other if you hate each other so much."

He didn't hate Oikawa, why did everyone think that? However, it was with a certain sense of shame that Kageyama started tracing the rim of his own cup of hot chocolate, staring at the cute pig cartoons painted all around the cup. For some reason, the pigs were orange. They reminded him of Hinata.

"…He gives good tips sometimes."

And that made Sugawara give the greatest sigh yet, as he drank half his coffee in one go and resurfaced like a drowning man, sucking in a huge breath.

"Volleyball," Sugawara muttered to himself, rolling his eyes. "That explains it."

And Kageyama drank his own hot chocolate, inwardly moping about his impending loss against Oikawa in his texting war. He looked at Sugawara, who still looked disgruntled and muttering something like how he wasn't _actually a mother thanks_ , and dipped his eyes, curling a small smile into his cup as he took a sip.

Time to initiate conversation. After sitting there deliberating, Kageyama tentatively asked what he deemed the most suitable question. "How are your studies?"

"Why, I'm glad you asked, Kageyama!" Sugawara grinned at him. "You know what, funnily enough, we were actually talking about emotional intelligence in class today! I took really serious notes so I could share it with everyone on the team, haha." Then in a mutter half to himself, Sugawara rolled his eyes. "I think _everyone_ can really learn from it."  


  


* * *

  
When they passed through his village in all its decrepit, poverty-stricken glory, all Sugawara did was wrinkle his nose. Kageyama agreed, and took them through the most deserted streets to not bump into anybody. They passed his house, and Kageyama passed it without a glance, knowing he'd left nothing much in there.

Kageyama had never really liked that place anyway. He glanced at Sugawara, and tried again to start conversation.

Geh. Small talk. They'd both hated it, before.

Having debated long and hard over what question he should start with, Kageyama decided with a simple one.

"What is your favourite colour?"

"Green. You?" Sugawara replied, all easy.

"My favourite colours are orange and black. Um, what is your favourite food?"

"Spicy things."

Oh, still? That's familiar at least. Was there mapo tofu in this world? Kageyama wondered, dredging up past memories for any recipes he might remember. He hadn't been bad at cooking, back in the day. "I like milk products," he tacked on when Sugawara prodded him to answer his own question.

Tofu was pretty easy to make, if Kageyama remembered correctly. The mapo sauce though…  
He'd cheated by using store-brand. Geh.

 _"I know how to cook mapo tofu, Kageyama!"_ Yachi volunteered, _"I'm sure we can figure out a recipe together!"_ and Kageyama perked up for a few seconds before he forcibly reminded himself that Yachi was not real and so even if his subconscious might've volunteering it wasn't as if it was helpful. Dammit.

"My turn for questions!" Sugawara clapped his hands, waggling grey eyebrows at him for Kageyama's attention before pretending to think thoughtfully, finger on chin. "Alright! Well, Kageyama, tell me your deepest, darkest secret!" Sugawara said jokingly, and Kageyama blinked.

"Okay." He shrugged. "Which one?"

"Any, I guess?" Sugawara hummed, easily maneuvering through the potholes and dirty slush on the road they were in, somehow keeping his cloak clean.

"Well…" _I'm reincarnated and you were one of my best friends in my past life and I think I've already gone crazy because I hear a lot of voices in my head including yours and you don't remember me and I can't remember the recipe to mapo tofu to cook it for you_ seemed like it would be a bit too heavy for a 'getting to know you icebreaker' conversation.

Kageyama took the easy way out.

"I used to like being alone," Kageyama said something he'd admitted to Sugawara _before_ , "but not anymore."

At that, Sugawara looked a bit nonplussed, lips pursed as he scanned Kageyama's face. "Okay. Hmm, thinking about it, I don't know where you come from?"

Well…

"The village right up there," Kageyama nodded. "The one we just passed through."

"Grey, destitute, poor, extremely isolated?" Sugawara pointed backwards, and Kageyama nodded in reply. Sugawara was definitely looking at him peculiarly now, a slightly speculative gaze, and even before he spoke up, Kageyama added, "It's just, someone told me to go to the desert town before I started travelling to the Capital."

"Who was it?" Sugawara asked pleasantly, and Kageyama saw in his eyes the determined glint of slowly being picked apart and figured out, making him sweat a little. A trick question? Where was the grenade?

"A witch," Kageyama finally replied. "The one who gave me the blessing told me to go to the town."

At Sugawara's speculative hmmmm, Kageyama swallowed, painful and dry. He knew Suga _(Sugawara)_ enough to know that the smile he'd had on ever since they met, as familiar and pleasant as it looked, was fake.

( _He's giving you the grilling, huh,"_ Daichi said sympathetically. _"Don't worry, we all know you'll get through his barriers sooner or later. You were basically his little brother, you know?"_ )

( _"Shut up, Daichi,"_ Sugawara cut in pleasantly.)

( _"You can do it, Kageyama,"_ Asahi assured, just like usual. _"Suga's a territorial porcupine. Once you're in, you're in forever. It just takes a little time."_ )

Of course. Trust, he chanted to himself, was not built in a day. Wasn't that what he'd learnt the hard way before? If he could do it when he was actually fifteen, he could do it now.

So Kageyama curled his fingers tight around his fishing pole, and continued building his list of ice-breaker questions with determination.

"Favourite animal?"

"Hmm, pigs. Don't you think they're cute?" Sugawara smiled at him, a chuckle at the back of his throat. _Lie_ , Kageyama thought.

Kageyama nodded. "I like birds. Crows are fluffy and quite intelligent even though one nearly clawed my eye out once. Foods you don't like?"  


  


* * *

  
"Kageyama," Suga had once said to him at a team reunion back at Miyagi, back when team reunions had been comparatively easy, right at the cusp of adulthood. Asahi's new apartment had a view of the river, a long flowing line of silver that was soon blocked by a curve and a rise of apartment buildings. "How're you doing?"

Off the balcony, inside, Kageyama heard the furious bellows of a few of the louder members and a loud explosion from the TV. A shriek from Hinata, and Yachi's stammering. Yamaguchi's snicker.

"Good," Kageyama answered, holding himself straight on the balcony stool. "You?" Suga's face crinkled into lines long familiar, like a laugh was bubbling just underneath his next word.

"I'm _good_ too, Kageyama," he teased. "So nothing else to tell your old sempai? No juicy gossip?"

Kageyama frowned and thought hard about what people thought were interesting conversation topics. "Hinata tried to adopt a cat again?" He tried. He counted it as a success when Suga chuckled.

"Okay, but anything about you?"

Kageyama tried again to find interesting things about himself, but after a too long pause Suga let him off the hook. "Alright Kageyama, no need to hurt yourself. Let's talk about that last prefectural match instead."

At his words, Kageyama lit up. Man, that last play by number 7 on the field had been amazing, and he'd wanted to discuss it for hours but everyone was partying and no-one wanted to talk tactics with him because Hinata had been drawn into Nishinoya and Tanaka's mysterious schemes in the kitchen straight after they'd arrived.

Suga sat there for the next hour engaging in volleyball debate with him, their legs swinging from their seat on the table.  


  


* * *

  
The Capital was a faraway place that Sugawara estimated would take approximately a month of by walking. Walking, camping, foraging until they hit the roads, where there would be traveler inns and cabins that they could sleep in.

"You don't know how to light a campfire?" Sugawara had asked him in surprise.

Well, he had been a country boy at heart back in Miyagi too, even though he'd never roughed it this much in Japan. Kageyama awkwardly plopped his small potato sack onto the floor, while Sugawara cleared the ground of foliage. "What do I do?"

"Just collect some twigs for now," Sugawara directed, "and we'll go from there." Sugawara, with characteristic patience, then ran Kageyama through the process – clearing the undergrowth, building a stack of kindling, telling him how if there were rocks around they'd put a circle around the fire, but this'll have to do. Then, after telling Kageyama to back up, Sugawara narrowed his eyes in concentration, pointed at the stack of kindling and said, " _Fos."_

A spark traveled from his finger straight into the kindling. The next second, Sugawara was feeding the small fire with bigger sticks.

Kageyama was gobsmacked.

( _"Shoot, was that magic?"_ Noya asked, intrigued.)

(Hinata screamed in his head. Something garbled like, _"You're too cool, Suga-sempai!"_ )

( _"Impressive,"_ Daichi laughed. _"You're a wizard, Suga!"_ )

( _"Shut up, Daichi."_ ) 

"Was that magic?" Kageyama asked, mesmerised from the totally-normal-looking fire that was actually _magic fire_ holy crap. "That's really cool."

Sugawara glanced up at him, surprised, before glancing down. "You should try it sometime," Sugawara replied, focusing on bringing up the flames. "It's a good skill to have, and it's more common than some people think." They settled around the flames, and Sugawara pulled a few food items from his bag. Kageyama volunteered to cook, since Sugawara had built the fire right?

Cooking was done underneath Yamaguchi's constant encouragement, _'You can do it, Kageyama!',_ dipping his eyes to watch the pot, warm and bright within the small clearing they'd found in the sparse forest. Sugawara was hammering the last peg of his tent into place, and the moment he finished, he threw a warm smile at Kageyama and plopped himself next to the fire too, staring in interest at the pot of stew Kageyama had been attending.

"Smells good, Kageyama!" Sugawara exclaimed, his brown eyes bright at the prospect of food. Kageyama grinned in pride. "And food always tastes good with company."

True, that.

When he glanced up, Sugawara was humming a soundless song, taking inventory of his backpack. There were still words Kageyama felt that he wanted to say but they just—just like usual, really—wouldn't come out, just kinda stuck in his brain, whirling about.

 _I'm glad you're here,_ he thought at Suga instead, and finished stirring the stew.

"Can you teach me magic?" Kageyama asked over dinner.

"Hmm," Sugawara hummed, noncommittally. "I'll think about it. What about you tell me about you instead? What did you do in your village?"

"Uh… Not much?" Kageyama answered honestly, but by the stillness of the smile on Sugawara's face, it wasn't what he wanted to hear?

That night, Kageyama slept underneath the stars on the pallet he stole from the inn, under the small sheet he packed from his house. The clearing they chose was bathed in white-silver moonlight, gleaming against Sugawara's tent. His own tiny hands were greyish underneath the moon when he held them up, looking past the gaps into the sky, rewinding the day in his head. What would make Suga feel more comfortable with him?

 _"I know, I know!"_ Hinata bounced. _"Make him breakfast! He looked pretty happy with dinner today!"_

Yeah, Kageyama felt pretty happy seeing Sugawara praising his food.

 _"Or talk about something nice,"_ Asahi advised. _"You guys just need to know each other more."_

 _"Why am I acting so suspicious though?"_ Suga wondered. _"I'm usually much friendlier than this!"_

 _"Well… none of us ever met you during your younger teens, Suga,"_ Daichi pointed out. _"Maybe this is your edgy teen phase you've never talked about?"_

 _"I think all I did was listen to angry rock bands when I got moody,"_ Suga reminisced, still sounding bewildered over his counterpart's behaviour.

Kageyama fell asleep curled around the ashes of the campfire facing Sugawara's tent, comforted by their banter.

That night, he didn't dream.

The next morning, when Kageyama mentioned that they were going to join one of the small roads that lead to one of the main roads that led to the Capital (a fact he'd heard from the rare trader that would willingly come up to his village for business), Sugawara looked uncomfortable.

"Do you want to continue camping?" Kageyama asked, confused.

"Yeah, let's do that," Sugawara said in relief, clutching his pack a little tighter, and this time it was Kageyama who slowed, who started piecing the dots together.

When they happened across the next small village, Sugawara drew up his hood and let Kageyama do all the talking. Only after they'd left the village and wandered back into the forest again, ignoring all the nice, easy to tread roads for a birds-eye route towards the Capital instead, did Sugawara draw the hood back down.

The next day, Kageyama woke up early, only to find Sugawara already up. Up, and in a tree, where he was meditating, facing the sunrise. When he noticed Kageyama awake, Sugawara again jumped down – but not from a five metre height this time, but somewhere along the lines of… ten? And he'd walked off as if there was nothing impressive about that fact at all, leather zori silent even among the branches and dry leaves on the ground while Kageyama crunched through every pile, broke every branch on the ground.

The night after, when Kageyama had been pretending to sleep, he watched Suga quietly close his tent, and walk like a shadow by Kageyama's head. Through the smallest crack of his eyes, he watched as Suga didn't climb the tree, but instead took one leap off the ground and ran up it, the last jump letting him reach out and swing onto a thick, sturdy branch near 15 metres up, the branch creaking slowly underneath his weight.

Then to Kageyama's near disbelief, he wrapped the cloak around his head and seemed to disappear, the only indication he'd left from the sudden shake of the branch to one further away, until all Kageyama noticed was the chirping of some bugs in the distance.

The next morning, Sugawara was up on a tree meditating to the sunrise again, like nothing had happened that night. He'd leapt down the tree with a sunny, "Good morning, Kageyama!" Ignoring the hubbub in his head, Kageyama stifled his questions and greeted back.

On the fifth day, they passed another village, and a village man reached out and touched Sugawara's cloak.

"This is nice fabric," the man, _[Clever-eyed Profiteer]_ stated. "Veery nice. Not from around here, are you? Hmm, the east? Want to trade for it, son?"

"No, thank you," Sugawara replied with a grin, before patting Kageyama on the back. "Me and my friend still have a ways to go, you see!" Sugawara laughed, before shrugging. "Believe me, I could use some coin too."

When the man laughed back, Sugawara ushered them both out of the village as quickly as possible. Once half an hour away from it, Sugawara turned to him, eyes tight.

"You say you got a blessing, right? You can see words floating above heads? What did he have?"

Kageyama clutched his fishing pole, uneasy.

"Clever-eyed Profiteer. Why?"

Sugawara didn't answer, just picked up his pace.

And Kageyama followed, eyes trained on the back of his head.

The next day, they were attacked.  


  


* * *

  
"Hit me," Suga sobbed into his fifth tissue. "Or distract me. Or something. Or at least give me another tissue, this one's already soggy."

Kageyama dug into the pocket of his suit and gave him another tissue, eyes still trained on the vision of Yachi in a white dress, listening to the priest as they prepared to exchange vows. Yachi was beaming enthusiastically forward at the priest, sneaking glances at her husband-to-be, a nice young oceanographer who was so perfect, quirky and intelligent that even _Tsukishima_ couldn't find things to negatively snark at. Hinata, defying stereotypes, was her best brides-not-maid, because _'he's my best friend and deserves the spot, girl or not!'_

After the kiss, when Yachi and Hinata's eyes found his, when everyone clapped and roared and whistled, Kageyama was already on his feet clapping with all his might, palms already starting to sting, heart swelling for Yachi, one of his two, best, best friends. Suga on his side was struggling to both clap and stem the flow of snot with at least ten tissues on hand. One soggy tissue, he remembered, landed on his shoulder.

Thank goodness the suit was rental, he remembered thinking as he handed a still watery-eyed Suga to Daichi, who only grinned and handed Suga _alcohol_ of all things. Washing his hands of his two sempai, he walked towards his best friends, the bride, Hinata and the groom, determined to congratulate Yachi.

  


* * *

  
In the predawn glow of the sky, Sugawara's grey hair seemed almost black, a dull fluffy mop that sat atop his head as he did his usual inventory check. Sitting on the side, Kageyama silently finished the last of the trail mix that Suga had given him, wiping salty fingers on his shirt and cleanly folding the cloth pouch the mix had been in, handing it to Sugawara so that he could finish inventory.

Moments later, a huge chatter of birds spiralled into the air from his right as they screeched a panicked trail in the air, a large black swoop before the trees bent and his ears echoed at a huge _boom_ of a shockwave shaking the world apart. He stumbled and dropped to the floor, even as Sugawara quickly rose, his eyes trained on the smoke and the glimmering red that told that something had caught alight. Kageyama was flabbergasted. _This world had bombs?_

"They've come," Sugawara said quietly, face sombre. A second of contemplation, before he glanced at Kageyama and knelt in front of him. "I still don't know if you're a spy or not, but if you are innocent I'm sorry for dragging you into this due to my paranoia," Sugawara said quickly, efficient as he pulled his pack close and pulling a full-sized staff from the bag.

Kageyama tried not to feel surprised that Sugawara apparently had an inter-dimensional pocket in his bag. Sugawara was apparently a ninja so… like, why not have an inter-dimensional pocket-bag?

"This is a staff that was given to me by my mentor, who was also a sage, one blessed like you. If you're really who you say you are, the staff will protect you. If not, then you're more capable than you look, and I don't have to worry." Sugawara finished with a gentle smile and pushed the staff into his hands, before he plunged his arm into his bag and took out something, slipping it into an inside breast pocket just in time for a shadow to flit into the clearing. The shadow cleared unnaturally slowly, revealing a cloaked figure similar to Sugawara's, except… Something felt wrong. Kageyama shivered.

 _[Chaser Assassin]_ , his title said. The man underneath grinned.

"I found you, Sugawara. Hand it over."

The mellow smile Sugawara gave the assassin reminded him of days far past, on a court under bright lights and loud cheers, when Suga looked at the opponent's team and gave them that exact same smile. A veneer of friendliness covering hardened analytical steel.

"Hmm, any chance of you telling me who sent you?" Sugawara asked.

"No. Your time's out."

The first strike came from the assassin, a dark blur of the arm too fast for Kageyama's eyes to follow, a gleam of silver... thrown straight at him. Before Kageyama could even blink, or even go into cardiac arrest from _what is happening what is that a knife_ , Sugawara flickered in front of him, catching the (he saw now) shuriken caught between two fingers. Kageyama was left staring at Sugawara's back as he stood protectively in front of him.

"Wha—"

"Wow, your aim is really bad!" Sugawara interrupted Kageyama cheerfully, addressing the assassin. "I was waaay to the right, you know?" Playfully tossing the shuriken up and down a few times in his hand, Sugawara gave a small contemplative hum before with a snap of his wrist, threw it straight back at the assassin's jugular. The attacker cursed, ducking in a whirl of cloth before glancing up and noticing that Sugawara had disappeared up into the trees in one jump, and with a rustle, had left.

"You have what he's carrying, boy?" the man demanded. "This a ploy?"

All Kageyama did was grip the staff tighter. Even if he did know what was happening, it wasn't as if he was going to tell a guy who was obviously trying to kill Suga.

The man shot him a disgusted look. "Tch, useless."

This time, Kageyama barely saw the shuriken, a gleam of silver metal in the darkness that headed straight toward his neck, and inside his head there were more than a few screams of panic as Noya and Yachi simultaneously broke through record levels of pitch ( _"WE'RE GONNA DIE AAAAAAH"_ ). Kageyama, privately though, just felt... slightly unwilling. No, not even just slightly unwilling.

He had just met Kiyoko, just met Suga, he was going to travel, he finally, finally found something to live for—

But what if he died, and he went back to the real world? Maybe...maybe that wouldn't be too bad.

Then time stopped.

_No, Dear._

The whole world froze in a wave power, washed into a dark, fathomless blue as a woman's voice echoed in his head. Not like when Karasuno did it, as if his brain was their living room and he was just their awkward, unwilling host. No, this voice was someone he didn't recognise, for one. Too... smooth. Deep, and had some foreign inflection in it. Refined, like an edge of silk.

 _You can call me a sort of mother_ , the voice offered. _I chose you, after all, out of all those others you came with all those years ago. You probably don't remember,_ the voice mused, before Kageyama seemed to feel a distinctive shrug of dismissal in her voice as she continued. _Well, we don't have time for that now, do we, Kageyama Tobio?_

Blue shone off the edges of the shuriken that had frozen in place, a silent promise of his death the moment time started again.

_Do you want to live? ___

Even though he'd only met the Sugawara of this world for a week, would he be sad if he died? Probably. It was probably enough of a reason to live.

 _I'll give you power to live,_ the voice said, _just say my name when I leave, okay?_

And it was to the echoes of laughter that Kageyama blinked his eyes open (when had they shut?) and whispered

_"Benzaiten."_

The staff in his hands shook a little, flaring a brilliant azure in his hands that filled the clearing in an explosion of colour—and the shuriken in front of his eyes stopped. It drooped through the blue light like it was viscous, until the weapon landed softly on the ground.

The man had already moved to try follow Sugawara, crouched low, muscles bunching to give chase, but in all of those three seconds, the man had frozen mid-squat, recognition starting to dawn as he looked at the staff, before looking at Kageyama with amazement.

"Sage," he breathed, near reverent. "An azure sage…" The man's eyes flickered to his face, searching for something before the sharp crack of a branch breaking deeper in the forest echoed like a snap around the forest. The man stopped himself and breathed deep, before turning his back on Kageyama. "I'll return for you later," the man shot back at him, before in one powerful jump, he disappeared into the dark as well, the rustling of leaves the only trace left.

Silence. Kageyama's hands started trembling, suddenly feeling cold—

( _"Okay, one, two! Breathe, Kageyama!_ " Ennoshita encouraged. _"In, out!"_ )

Kageyama took two deep breaths. In. Out.

In.

Out.

Then he hauled himself onto his feet with the staff, digging it deep into the earth when he wobbled a little too much from shock and adrenaline.

He wasn't a ninja like Sugawara but he wasn't unfit. If his heart was going to start racing, then he'd better give it a better reason to do so than fear. He took a few seconds to assess his physical condition before setting a good running pace for himself - a habit from his old athlete days - and set off in the direction that the assassin had went. When an explosion rocked the ground, and Kageyama narrowed his eyes and calculated, adjusting his direction accordingly.

The next explosion bloomed a plume of smoke that rose up from the trees, and Kageyama sped up, heart kicking in his chest, because he had to be there. Sugawara had seemed really competent, but at most he was fourteen, and the assassin had looked in his early thirties.

Another crackle of flame, closer but still too far away. Kageyama gritted his teeth and pushed his pace a little faster.

  


* * *

  


This was what Suga meant to Kageyama:

A humid Tokyo night, summer stifling. Sugawara, bumping shoulders with Daichi and Asahi. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi behind. Hinata bouncing, yelling, neon lights reflecting into the night.

Kageyama hands in his pockets, half absent-minded over the latest play he wanted to perfect, content to nod.

"You aren't listening to me, Kageyama!" Hinata, the skip in his step slightly lost, and Kageyama floundered, as he always did, as he always tried not to be. Just as he was about to rise to defend himself, Suga glanced back with a laugh on his lips.

"Kageyama's probably just thinking about that game we just saw, Hinata!" Suga grinned at them both, and Hinata brightened up.

"Ooh, which play were you thinking about, Kageyama?" Hinata bubbled, skipping and bouncing along again.

Suga gave him a wink, and Kageyama gave him an awkward twitch of the lips back.

* * *

"Congratulations, Suga!" Daichi yelled, and everyone crowded in front of the restaurant. Noya clambered over both him and Tanaka, to launch himself at Suga with a huge shout of "Cheers, Suga-sempai! Congratulations!" Hinata was going to attempt the same before quailing at Kageyama's most poisonous glare. His back hurt dammit, from Noya's elbows.

"Thanks everyone!" Suga yelled back over the din, and they all proceed to fool around for the next twenty minutes instead of doing the sensible thing and file in for their dinner reservation. They figure it out, eventually.

Kageyama approached Suga when the dinner had finished, and everyone was wondering how to get home the fastest way so late.

"Here," Kageyama pressed a gift into Suga's hands, struggling to find more words, but instead ended all of his thoughts with a, "Congratulations... onyouracceptance."

Kageyama was not mumbling nor blushing in embarrassment, thank you very much.

"Thanks, Kageyama!" Suga, to his surprise, took the present and put it with care on top of a bag already nearly overfull with presents, and drew him into a tight hug. "It means the world to me that you're here!"

"Of course," Kageyama replied. Why wouldn't he? Especially since Hinata and Yachi and everyone else was going to be here too.

Suga's eyes were laughing at him, Kageyama decided. Why?

"Did you have fun?" Suga asked instead, drawing them both back into the most rowdy part of their crowd. Kageyama hummed indecisively in reply, voice quickly swallowed by their friend's laughter.

* * *

A door creaking, a hand that switched on the light. Brown eyes full of concern.

"Are you alright, Kageyama?" Kageyama looked up from his corner, a ball of blankets. "Hinata isn't back yet, I'm sorry. Anything… I can do to help?"

Kageyama found it in himself to pull a cushion closer to him, and Suga took the hint and sat down on it, close, but far enough for Kageyama to breathe. Silently, they both watched the moon rise, and then gently fall from its zenith.

  


* * *

  


More than just a weekly lunch meeting, or a constant presence he could rely on to call, or text, or to ask questions of, or to laugh with or laughed at or laugh to. He was more than a flash of a kind smile, an earnest willingness and enthusiasm to help and guide. He was a friend, but not, because for someone that he'd let that close a word like friends didn't cut it, because he had built friends, known friends, and Sugawara was a friend but also someone like… a safe harbour. A person that he'd always imagined a big brother would've been like.

This Sugawara wasn't his Suga, even though they were both kind, and they both laughed at Kageyama's sincere attempts at communicating clearly (but not hurtfully, never hurtful). He was weirdly sly, and kept asking Kageyama weird questions, and seemed to have a shady hatred for roads. He could run up trees like a ninja, and had weird fantasy powers, and they'd only known each other for a week but. But.

Did that even matter?

When Kageyama dived between Sugawara and the assassin, his mind rang with a clear emphatic no. It didn't matter that Sugawara was not Suga, that he'd never be Suga, and that he'd never get him back for real. He'd just get to know him again. They'd be the best of friends again. He will get to know Sugawara, no matter what, and that couldn't happen if he was dead.

( _"You know, I'm suddenly not so worried anymore,"_ Suga murmured softly.)

"Back off," Kageyama said to the stranger coldly, gripping the staff Sugawara had given him in between them. A quick glance above his head, "You're not welcome here, Chaser Assassin."

"Sage," the assassin immediately leapt back, "you're not involved in this. If you hired this boy to protect you, believe me that after this is done I will gladly escort you wherever you need to go."

Suga behind him scoffed, dragging himself up as carefully as he could. His right leg and arm were both charred black. "Don't believe him. He'll just kidnap you." A wheezy grunt of pain followed.

"Are you okay?" Kageyama asked, holding the staff up and remembering what that feeling was like. The blue light that came with the weird voice had been… warm, in a pins and needly way of I don't want to die adrenaline fueled rush.

 _I don't want Suga to die,_ Kageyama told the staff silently, squinting to see if it had started glowing yet. _Please_ , he belatedly added, when he saw the assassin had drawn his arms back for a throw. _More explosives are coming, I think. Do I need to say it?_

"Benzaiten, please?" Kageyama whispered.

The staff paused for a minute before starting a stuttering humming glow, blue bleeding through his fingers before spreading out through the entire clearing, covering him and Sugawara in the blue light.

The humming in his fingers tingled when the man paused at the light, throwing a small bomb to test its effect. When all the bomb did was slow down in mid-air and slowly drop towards the ground like the shuriken from before, he dipped low and ran headlong into Kageyama's spherical bubble of light, veering around him for a shot at Sugawara. The moment he touched the light though, the assassin froze in mid-jump.

Eyes widening comically slowly, the assassin immediately backed up until he'd extracted himself and stood a few metres away into the trees to avoid his glow, narrowed eyes glaring at the blue staff in Kageyama's hands.

Well, Kageyama reflected, this was going surprisingly well. _Thank you_ , he thought at the staff, then up at Benzaiten, because he wasn't brought up without manners.

"Leave," Kageyama then insisted.

In reply, the assassin sat on his haunches beyond the light of his staff, trying to wait him out.

To be fair, the humming in hands was getting harder to hold. The light was already shrinking from its previous diameter. Kageyama risked a glance at Sugawara, who had hauled himself into a kneeling position, face in a grimace of pain, fingers shaking against his knees, and with Kageyama being the tiny twelve year old kid he was right now, they wouldn't be running anywhere anytime soon. He couldn't fight either. He'd never punched anybody wanting to harm them before.

"Sugawara," Kageyama asked. "Is this blue thing magic?" He shook the glowing blue staff as emphasis.

Curious brown eyes analysed him, before Sugawara replied. "Yes, it is," Sugawara stated slowly. "But Kageyama, we both know you can't hold this for long – you can leave me behind if you want."

At that, Kageyama just turned around and ignored the rest of Sugawara's speech, and wrapped his mind around this new knowledge that apparently he could do magic.

If he could do magic with this staff, he could… probably do other spells as well. The only spell he'd ever heard Suga do was the firepit one though.

Fos?

Maybe he could… light the guy's cloak on fire or something. That seemed like something he could do. Could something like this become bigger too?

 _"Remember that the fire is just a chemical reaction, Kageyama!"_ Yamaguchi suddenly piped up in his head. _"Combustion is just applying enough heat to decompose materials, that then release chemicals, which then interact with oxygen, which emits heat, and oh no, I'm not explaining this very well but um. Fire is self-sustaining, so just make sure you have enough heat and fuel and it should do the rest by itself! Suga never had fuel, so you probably treat umm, magic as the fuel. And then use magic as heat, to heat up the magic fuel. Since it's all just magic, you can probably direct it anywhere, so make sure to focus in the direction of the assassin, okay?"_ Yamaguchi heaved a deep breath afterwards before stuttering, _"You got that, right? I mean, I hope you did."_

Yeah, he did.

 _"Wow, amazing, Yamaguchi!"_ Tanaka claps. _"You've been thinking about this a lot, huh?"_

Sounded complicated though.

 _"Stop complaining, Bakayama,"_ Hinata's voice loud like a whack to his head. _"Other-Suga is depending on you!"_

The blue light was thinning, but still there like a filled up water bubble, and magic was probably the hum of weird tingles in his arms so… what? Imagine?

That sounded stupid.

 _"Just DO IT!"_ Came a simultaneous yell, and Kageyama readied his staff in front of him.

Alright, alright.

So… he looked at the staff in his hands. Imagine the magic around him as fuel, and direct it towards the assassin, and then heat it up? Furrowing his brows, Kageyama pushed. Instantly, all the fading blue light still floating in the shrinking sphere around him became a thick beam of blue that swung towards the assassin. For heat, Kageyama took a split second to imagine the campfire, the flash of light, the small satisfied smile Suga had when he murmured his spell as the kindling lit up, crackling dry. Hot summer nights, the heat of a stove as it cooked something, the warm swathe of yellow light as a door opened late at night, the flash of an orange-tinted smile.

" _Fos!"_ Kageyama yelled, imagining heatheatheat, and immediately the stranger slackened his stance in offence, forgetting to dodge the blue light as he stared at Kageyama in disbelief.

"What, you're threatening me with that useless campfire spell?"

Anything extra was cut off, because a huge fireball erupted from the end of Kageyama's glowing staff, eating up the trail of blue light in half a second, hitting the assassin and continuing into the forest, lighting up the morning into a blaze of blue-white that even had Kageyama blinking from sudden tears. The assassin had been hit slightly as he half-dodged, getting thrown into a nearby tree, and Kageyama soon smelled the faint smell of burnt meat.

The assassin took a glance at the fireball still continuing burning trek through the forest and at Kageyama standing in front of Sugawara, staff in hand and already summoning another wave of blue light. With a small dip of his staff, the runes immediately lit up with azure light again, and the air in front of Kageyama shimmered.

With a curse, the assassin disappeared into the forest.

Then all that was left was Kageyama, Sugawara, and a huge trail of burning trees that… didn't seem to be extinguishing itself out anytime soon, if Kageyama's squinting was correct.

A burning branch snapped and fell to the ground. Somewhere in the distance, a tree groaned as its bark was burnt and licked by flames, splitting and cracking.

( _"Whooooo! You did it, Kageyama! Fire! Fire! Fire! Go, Yamaguchi! Yay!"_ Hinata celebrated in his head.)

However, Kageyama stared at the unholy destruction he had wrought, before shuddering into himself from shame and whirling himself around.

"I'm sorry!' He immediately yelled at Sugawara behind him, who was staring blankly at the burgeoning forest fire himself, face pale. "I didn't mean to do that! Really!"

"It's um, its okay, Kageyama," Sugawara said to him, his smile stuttering from pain. Kageyama immediately dropped the staff and hovered around the wound. Second degree burns, maybe? Probably? Was it numb? "We should probably get away from here though, just in case?"

"Are you okay?" Kageyama twitched his hands closer, stopping a few centimetres from skin. Burns need to cool down, right? Release some of the heat? Water?

"It'll be fine if we get back to our camp since I got some stuff for burns," Sugawara said. "Here, give me the staff for my right hand, and you can come under my left, and we'll hobble back, okay?" Kageyama nodded with determination, and handed over the staff so that Suga could carefully leverage himself up, while Kageyama ducked underneath Sugawara's left arm, a surprise huff of breath coughing out when Sugawara leant more weight on him than expected. Those muscles weren't for show. He was heavy.

"Yes, that's fine!" Kageyama gritted out, frowning at the direction that the camp was at. This must be nothing compared to what Sugawara was feeling. "Let's go!"

Kageyama, intensely scouring for any forest debris that might trip them both, missed the curious look Sugawara sent him as they hobbled back.

  


* * *

  
When they settled down back to their bags, Sugawara promptly found a first aid kit, and underneath Kageyama's amazed eyes, most of the damage disappeared when Sugawara mumbled something into some smooth bandages and rubbed the suddenly wet cloth over his burnt leg and arm.

"That's amazing!" Kageyama enthused, trying not to clap. Sugawara shot him an amused grin, before wrapping bandages over the affected areas (the skin was still a bit pink, Kageyama noted. Did that mean whatever healing he did wasn't complete?) and hauled his pack on his back again.

"We need to leave, Kageyama. More might come," Sugawara said softly, and Kageyama nodded before holding his own small sack and fishing pole, and ran to catch up with Sugawara, who had already forged forward in the opposite direction of the burning clearing.

Kageyama was busy staring at the sunrise (a warm orange) when Sugawara broke the silence.

"Thank you for saving me."

Kageyama looked at him in surprise, before shaking his head furiously. "It was no problem, Sugawara!"

"I owe you a life-debt," Sugawara just replied mildly. "That's a pretty big thing where I come from. First, I'll give you that staff you used before, okay? Then request anything you want of me, and I'll do it to the best of my ability."

Kageyama stopped in his tracks.

 _("Think before you say anything."_ Ennoshita advised.)

"I… didn't save you so that you could give me things," Kageyama decided to say, slowly. His fingers gripped his potato sack tighter. "A… a thanks is enough."

Sugawara was definitely staring at him curiously now, considering him like he was a complex puzzle, and Kageyama set his mouth in a solid, determined line. As Hinata had complained in the past, he could out stubborn everyone. Hah, want to force him to take a reward? You wish!

"A life-debt is still a debt," Sugawara said, after a period of silence from both of them, in which Kageyama refused to give and Sugawara waited for an answer. "Even if you don't accept it, to me it's a matter of honour, okay? Give me that, at least?"

Kageyama caved.

"Okay. I have one request."

Sugawara smiled, satisfied. "What is it? I will do my best to fulfill it."

The request was embarrassing though, and so extremely cheesy. Kageyama started marching forward, eyes averted to the side and tried to reason out that this was Suga, who had once known everything about him, so there was no shame to be felt! Right?

Sugawara trailed behind now, looking somewhat bemused.

"…be my friend?" Kageyama finally muttered, trailing off embarrassingly at the end. He'd meant to sound at least somewhat assertive! Ugh. Kageyama refused to stop marching forward and instead sped up when Sugawara paused, and it was quite a while before Sugawara's light footsteps caught back up to him again, a hand on his shoulder wrenching him backwards.

"Wait, wait, wait. Kageyama. By that you mean like, you want my loyalty? Or my life? Or something?" Sugawara's face filled his vision as he was twirled around, and Kageyama just scowled at hearing those things. What was Suga's life like here? "You don't want me to agree with your every whim?" Sugawara continued to blather, and Kageyama was horrified at the very thought, starting to get super suspicious and concerned about Sugawara's life. Did people extort him? Was he part of the yakuza? Was that why assassins were after Suga?

"No! None of that!" Kageyama replied, shifting his stare over Sugawara's shoulder when all the other boy did was give him his an intimidating incredulous look. Trying to shift backwards, he was stopped by Sugawara's hand, whose grip was rock solid. "Just… be my friend. And do friend things. You don't have to listen to me all the time, that's stupid."

Then he started sweating when all Sugawara did examine him again, all smart and calculative and guh. He wasn't used to confronting Suga, because no-one liked to anger Suga, because an angry Suga was extremely scary.

( _"Tell me about it,"_ Daichi grumbled.)

(Suga chuckled, slightly evilly.)

Kageyama braved to inch his gaze up to look at Sugawara's eyes. Guh. Still so analytical. Kageyama quickly glanced away again, and stared at… the sunrise. What a beautiful sunrise it was today. Marvellous, especially if he ignored all the smoke from the small forest fire he was refusing to think about. Stunning backdrop.

A few moments later, Sugawara finally let go of his shoulders, before patting Kageyama on the shoulder.

"Kageyama, okay, I'll be your friend. So, first thing as your friend, let me officially give you this staff!" Sugawara shoved the staff into his hands, plucking the fishing pole and the small sack off him in the process. "And I'll take care of these, because I have a perfectly good bag that will hold all of this without adding weight."

Kageyama watched as Suga stuffed the whole pole and the sack into his large backpack, and felt bewildered when Sugawara shot him a purely Suga smile at him.

"Wha—?" was all Kageyama managed to say before Sugawara winked.

"I take my friendships very seriously, Kageyama Tobio. Now, are you going to accept my gift or not? I'll be really hurt if you don't though?"

Kageyama gripped the staff a little tighter. The staff already felt familiar to his hand somehow. Sugawara nodded in approval before cheerfully dragging the other boy forwards with him. "Now, let's get to know one another. How old are you, Kageyama?"

"Twelve. Umm… you?" Kageyama ventured, wriggling his arm so that it was more comfortable, tucked against Sugawara's elbow. Sugawara glanced down at him in surprise.

"Twelve? But you look… Nah, wait. I'm fourteen years old, if you want to know. So, two years older than you, huh." Sugawara tapped his chin absentmindedly, before shrugging. "Eh, whatever. So what did you do with the assassin out there? I mean, even I've never seen such a large application of _fos_ before. It's like… the second most minor fire spell in existence. I didn't even know it was possible! How'd you do it?"

Kageyama, having promptly used the staff as a walking stick, traced the intricately carved whorls on the wood and thought back. The first time was because of the voice asking him why he didn't want to die. The second time was because he wanted to save…

"Because of you," Kageyama finished, stepping over a large root.

Sugawara laughed incredulously, voice momentarily drowning out even the small forest fire burning behind them, the sudden burst of sound enough to make a bird angrily squawk at them and fly off. Then he nudged Kageyama in the shoulder. Ow. That was unexpectedly bony. "Okay, no joking. Seriously, how?"

Immediate disbelief… When he looked at Sugawara, all he did was smile and did a go on gesture and waited. And if he knew Suga as well as he did, Sugawara wouldn't let it rest until he got something.

His answer wasn't a lie though. What to do.

" _Use my explanation, Kageyama,"_ Yamaguchi encouraged. _"I'll go over it with you, if you want. Suga seems like he wants something more sciency anyway."_ Kageyama nodded, before freezing and rubbed his nose and tried his best to seem like he wasn't talking to the voices in his head in front of Sugawara.

Good impression, good impression, good impression…

"I watched you light the campfires," Kageyama explained, gesturing a little. "Fire needs fuel and heat and oxygen. I though magic could be the fuel, and fos was obviously fire related and probably heated things up." Then he stopped and awkwardly shrugged. "That's it. You couldn't move, and I had to do something."

Sugawara adjusted his backpack clearly in thought, before giving a small chuckle.

"Mysteries will be mysteries, I guess. Say, Kageyama. Want me to teach you magic? I only know a little, but it'll fill in the time until we get to the Capital."

Kageyama stopped watching the passing forest mulch, incredulous. "Even though I started a forest fire?"

Sugawara gave him a bemused smile. "Yup. Whaddya say?"

"Yes!" Came Kageyama's exuberant reply, with no hesitation at all. "When do we get started? What do I need to prepare?" Kageyama's mind bubbled with excitement, because magic was probably what let Sugawara jump into trees and do ninja-ey stuff right? That would be great! Kageyama let himself have a brief moment of envy at the thought of his past life. Imagine if he had access to all this magic stuff back on Earth! He would be able to jump three metres, no problem!

"Woah, slow down, Kageyama!" Suga patted his shoulder. "We'll start at dinner, is that alright?" Kageyama nodded earnestly, before setting forward with more determination. This time, instead of awkward silence and a closed off hood as he lead the way, Sugawara made the effort to match his strides and babbled random facts about the forest as they passed. That hole in the tree indicated that woodpeckers lived around the area, the amount of dried poop around showed that there was probably a nest of rabbits around somewhere close. Kageyama just listened to all this with his most studious face (it wasn't constipated, no matter what Hinata said, dammit).

He was going to grip this inch that Sugawara gave him, and take a mile.

" _Hehe, getting attached already, Suga?"_ Asahi teased later on that day, when Sugawara looked at Kageyama's failing attempts to catch fish from the river and roasted an extra three that he gave all to Kageyama.

Suga grinned in his mind. _"Knew I'd come around sooner rather than later."_

  


* * *

  
That night, Kageyama reminisced, in a happy mood because of how well dinner went that night. It was the warmest Kageyama had ever felt, and he felt justified to hold it close to his heart as his mind wandered. His happiness lead to him to an old memory, one of a still blundering-in-life Suga.

In his memories... He'd always looked up to Suga. First, in a peripheral-sempai way. Later, in a human-being way.

Suga wasn't without his flaws though. Working too hard been one of them.

Once, Kageyama stayed out a lot later than usual because Suga had run late, so late that the café waitress had come over with a small sympathetic smile and gave him a free tea, on the house. After sipping that as slowly as possible and still seeing no Suga rushing through the door with an apologetic smile on his face, Kageyama paid for the extra tea when he scanned the café and saw the waitress busy with another customer before hunching into his coat into the early evening. He hurried down streets, walking past his usual bus stop and turned right at the strange two-branched tree, down five doors to a smaller, worn apartment building.

The guard that day recognised Kageyama, as he punched in the building's pin and the doors opened. When the man gave him a kind smile, he bowed back politely before moving up the stairs to the second floor. Carefully looked for the right door, just in case (Room 218) and knocked loudly.

Inside, there was a bang and a yelp, before there was a scrabble of fingers struggling with the lock and a sleepy Sugawara was staring up at Kageyama before his eyes widened in horror.

"Kageyama, is it time already? Oh no, I'm horribly late, aren't I?" Suga groaned, glancing at the clock he hung above the tiny kitchenette he had. "I'm really sorry, Kageyama. Want to come in?"

"It's fine, Suga-san," Kageyama said even as he noted how haggard Suga looked this time, with deeper eyebags than usual, and his grey hair a little oily and bedraggled compared to its usual impeccable style. "I got worried when you didn't come. Excuse me." Kageyama stepped inside and toed off his shoes, wiggling his toes a little in contemplation before looking Suga in the eye. "You look tired."

"Ahaha, is it that obvious?" Suga laughed, voice dry. "It's been a rough week. I was about to head out, I promise! I think I dropped off when I was trying to do some last minute reading…"

"Its fine," Kageyama reiterated, watching Suga walk down the small hallway to sit on the floor, where there were numerous books laid out. "Is there anything I can help with? Not that," Kageyama backtracked, "I can't help much with academics but. I wish. To help." Kageyama finally snapped his mouth shut, meaning sufficiently conveyed.

Then he continued to stand in the hallway, arms straight down his sides, staring at the lightbulb.

Suga's familiar, fond chuckle. Something loosened in his chest when he heard it, and Kageyama let himself look lower to see Sugawara had propped his chin with one hand, looking bemused.

"Oh, Kageyama," was all he said, before he waved Kageyama over, filling the silence with gossip about his week in university. The tutor was being unreasonable again, his group-mates being phenomenal, and the work he was being swamped with since mid-sems were coming. "I'm prepped enough though," Suga said as he poured tea for the both of them, before booting up his computer. "The only thing I need to do is to watch this video on this study about the effect of natural noises on the human psyche…"

Kageyama perked up, swallowing his tea. "Let's watch it together!"

Suga raised an eyebrow. "You know that it's just going to be an hour of people talking about whale noises or something, right?"

"I like whales," Kageyama insisted earnestly.

"Ahaha, alright! Lemme find the link, Kageyama."

They settled next to each other, listening to the voice coming out slightly tinny out of the speakers and Kageyama fell asleep in the first half-hour. When he got woken up after the video had ended, it was to Suga's knowing grin and two cups of instant ramen. Dinner was slurping cheap noodles to some stupid videos that Suga had loaded in the background for noise, sitting cross-legged surrounded by reference books Kageyama half-understood.

When he left, warm and toasty and holding a back of snacks to take back with him from an insistent Sugawara, he carefully noted that Sugawara had looked a little less haggard and he patted himself on a job well done.

  


* * *

  
_Extras:_

 __  
Suga's actually not really that patient – unless he knows them and acknowledged them as a friend. Then the patience usually multiplies by 10000x as he nods and grins and complains about how dumb the problems are in his head instead. He's patient, of course, if the topics are not too stupid. Kageyama, fortunately, had always stayed juuuuust within the 'not-that-stupid' range because Suga realises perfectly that Kageyama doesn't mean to do most of the things he does, they just sometimes happen. To Suga's chagrin and slight pride, he is one of the people Kageyama reaches out to the most.

_Kageyama doesn't know what to do with friends. It's okay, because his friends know what to do with him so most of the time they tease, but also ultimately explain what they're doing and why. Tanaka is the best at this because Suga is too lenient with Kageyama. It's Hinata that successfully drags him out the most though._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. :D  
> I have no idea what to say, but I really appreciated the comment last chapter. I think I half expected no-one to click it haha. So thank you ^^, and please leave a kudos or a comment if you liked it.  
> Well, things happened. Formatting in AOE take so long wow @_@


	3. The Case of Sugawara Koushi

#### The Case of Sugawara Koushi

Sugawara's first memory, first clear memory, is of dark shadows, of an iron tang in his mouth. He'd been led into a line that stood before a figure seated in a large chair, shivering in his night clothes as he stared at their clan leader. His bare feet shuffled back when he thought the leader was going to look at him, nearly stumbling into another four year old. They pushed him back up, so that he stood in line again, in wait, in the relative silence. The leader was a black shadow that moved to the side of the room to the first in line, working down the room until he was to his direct right, holding a crystal ball expectantly to the boy on his right, a nameless cousin. His cousin held his breath as he put his hand on the ball.

The room was so cold, and underneath his bare feet he felt the crustiness of dried blood. One part of himself cringed, but he couldn't shuffle away because the leader was right there, his navy eyes a shadow of pressure as he appraised his cousin before breathing heavily, impatient and annoyed.

"Say _spitha_ ," the leader ordered, and his cousin did. There was no response from the crystal, not even the smallest of sparks. The leader frowned, and even though it wasn't even directed at him Sugawara hunched into his yukata, feeling small and hunted.

"Say _othis_ ," the leader ordered next. His cousin took a trembling breath, and did.

No response. His cousin didn't even have a chance to pale, to look up, before his neck was slashed by the leader's other hand, holding the crystal high as he did so to protect it from any spray from the blood. The corpse crumpled sideways and his hand landed on Sugawara's foot, still warm. His fingers were twitching on his skin before they lay still, and even though Sugawara wanted to scream and kick the hand away, he forced himself to look up. The leader still looked slightly bored and annoyed, as he grimaced at the blood that had splattered his sleeve. Stepping over his cousin's leg, the leader looked at Sugawara next, blue eyes hooded, sleeves dripping red. He offered the crystal. Sugawara breathed in another lungful of metal air that only made him sick, and put his hand on the crystal.

"Say _spitha_ ," the leader ordered.

" _Spitha_ ," Sugawara echoed. The crystal gave a tiny spark in the middle, a dim red flicker that died as quickly as it lit. The leader frowned.

"Say _othis_."

Heart thundering in his chest, Sugawara trembled it out. " _Othis_."

The crystal burnt a bright scarlet red, a swelling of light that nearly lit up the entire room with its glow. Underneath it, Sugawara felt burning relief because he passed whatever this was, and he could see the whole room stir as all the boys on his left shuffled to stare at him. He could hear people on the balconies spectating whispering in a roar, and Sugawara inexplicably felt a rush of pride even, at doing something so well.

And then he looked up, and all his pride died. The leader was smiling, his bored expression gone as a grin twisted his face from ear to ear. His eyes glinted underneath heavy brows. "A talent, I see," the leader purred. "Good, good. I expect much from you in the future."

The hand that caressed his cheek left bloodstains that Sugawara secretly sneaked away to scrub clean later that night. Bending over the small basin from the well, he stared at his wide-eyed reflection and bit his lip hard to not to think of the cartful of small bodies he'd passed when he was led out of the building.  


* * *

  
" _Othis_ ," Sugawara muttered, feeling the qi burn through his veins in response to his command, energy thrumming in his body as he glanced at his target, a man in his middle-twenties who was clumsily arranging the flowers he'd brought for his wife into a vase. During the week that Sugawara had watched the mark, his mark had been preparing for his first wedding anniversary by memorising a book of traditional poetry that he mumbled underneath his breath even now.

Prolonging it any longer would be dangerous, and so with a sigh Sugawara flickered through the window and into the room, registering the pleasant scent of the expensive candles that the target had bought. It was the wife's favourite, an expensive scent of slight chrysanthemum honey wafted through the air. The nobleman was humming idly, having thoughtlessly strangled a few flowers in his attempts at making his gift look beautiful.

He noticed Sugawara's shadow behind him too late, only letting a small gasp through his lips before Sugawara drove his tantō from the back of the neck into his brain. Immediate death, a clean slice. When Sugawara checked his pulse, he assured himself that the target felt no pain. He'd done it perfectly. He quickly did a few slash marks on the body before flickering away.

When Sugawara presented the chopped ear to his master, she nodded in acknowledgement and slid the ear into a box for preservation. Then she smiled at him.

"Dependable as always. Did you prolong the death of the target as our Emperor wished?"

"Yes," Sugawara replied, head down. His long hair hid his face from his master as she gave him a genteel, distant hug. The door wasn't shut after all.

"Good job. Get your dinner from the mess hall, you deserve it."

"Yes," Sugawara replied.

A week later, Sugawara visited the nobleman's house in funeral robes and attended his honorary walk, eyes trained on the noblewoman inside the carriage. In her hands was the copy of the poetry book her husband had been planning to recite to her, a few withered chrysanthemums in a white hand. At the end of the procession, Sugawara made his way to the noblewoman and gave her a small bunch of peonies that he'd foraged around the mountains for that morning. Although the guards stopped him at first, the noblewoman smiled down at his small offering through the screen.

"Bravery?" She smiled at him as she reached out and accepted the flowers, small and weary. "What a sweet boy you are. You're very young to know hanakotoba. Thank you."

Sugawara didn't return her smile, but bowed deeply before walking away to guard the procession from afar.  


* * *

  
"We only serve the Emperor!" The leader shouted at the front of the room, his face twisted into an ferocious snarl as he continued to yell. "We serve where other factions can't, to help Wu become the great country it once was!"

Sugawara watched from the side as all the members of their clan roared in approval, before silently leaving when the leader started his impassioned speech again. As much as it was supposed to be inspiring, all Sugawara felt was a faint feeling of annoyance at how loud all of these gatherings were. Why did they have to yell all the time?

The corridor outside the meeting room was suitably warmer and sunnier, with a hint of fresh brine from the sea nearby freshening the air. At how refreshed he felt just be breathing in some sunnier air, Sugawara wondered why the leader always liked his rooms all cold and musty. Not to mention the unhygienic bloodstains that the leader sometimes liked to leave around the room for 'atmospheric purposes'. Really. He was _eight_ and even he'd learnt all the icky stuff that was in blood and other bodily fluids.

(He couldn't help but think the leader was kind of stupid).

Halfway to the kitchens for a sneaky snack, Sugawara was stopped by a hand to his shoulder.

"Not listening to the leader's speech?" Asked his master's smooth voice. "Why?"

"He says the same thing all the time," Sugawara answered, turning fast enough to catch his master smother a small flicker of amusement.

"True that," she answered. "He likes the attention, if you really want my opinion." His master brushed her hair behind her shoulder, one of the only things he'd seen her care about really. With a twinkle in her eye, she gave him a rare, honest grin. "Don't worry, I won't tell him about you ditching his speech, so you owe me, okay?"

Sugawara smiled at her in thanks. "Well, you're ditching too," he pointed out. His master wrinkled her nose.

"True," she answered, before gave him a side-eye, the tilt of her mouth sly. "Then I won't tell him that you visited your last target's grave with flowers." Sugawara's open-mouthed look of surprise made her laugh. "Of course I know, you're my junior apprentice. I don't just handle your cases, I handle _you_. But you know," she raised an eyebrow. "Daffodils? Really?"

Sugawara shrugged her hand off his shoulder and grumbled. "He deserves it, he was a good man. Also," Sugawara thought of the flower field that he usually found his flowers from, "they're in season and easy to get."

His master looked at him, her face ever in a smile. This time though… Her brown eyes were clouded, as if she was staring at something behind him instead of at him. His master was, in his opinion, one of the smarter (if not smartest) mid-level apprentices in their whole clan. She never let her guard down, something she always hammered into Sugawara too.

"What's wrong?" Sugawara asked, tilting his head in thought, slightly concerned.

"How old are you again, Sugawara?" His master asked, as if she didn't have to know all his personal details by heart. "Eight?" He nodded, wondering where this was going. "Eight, and you still ask me what's wrong like you care. What a stupid nugget you are," she mused, patting him on the head. "Go, the kitchen has some mochi today. They made two extra, so nab them both and give me one later, yeah?"

After shooting back a " _you're_ the nugget," at his master, Sugawara obediently trotted off, confused as to what all that was about. His master never had that look on when she wasn't plotting something.  


* * *

  
Another week, another target. Sugawara tied his grey hair back, and dropped down. His fingers found soft skin. The bright, colourful robes of the child were made of soft silk, something he noted as he arranged the corpse into a dignified position to be found.

Sugawara had found a chance when the child, curious and playful, had wandered too far into the gardens and most importantly, out of sight of his caretaker. It was easy enough then, to wrap a hand over his mouth, an arm around his neck and twist. A series of soft pops, then a crack. Sugawara held on for a few more seconds, before wiping the spit off his hand on the child's shoulder and laying him down, avoiding the frozen blue eyes in the kid's face. Using his tantō, he cut off an ear as their clan's official signature and wiped the blood off on the child's shoulder.

He took a moment to lay the child down, untwisting the neck and closing his eyes. Although he didn't know if this feeling was called sadness, he did know tired. His master had called it compassion, once, said it was a good thing but he should hide it from the other apprentices. So when he felt it again staring at this little boy's face, he tucked it into the place behind his heart. It wasn't this little boy's fault his father was plotting against the emperor after all.

In the distance, he heard the boy's caretaker calling his name. " _Shouta,_ " the caretaker called, unworried but getting closer.

Sugawara swallowed, and with a murmur of _othis_ , he jumped over the wall and was gone.  


* * *

  
"Your master is calling for you," called a voice from the door and Sugawara swung his feet off his bunk with a groan. His fellow apprentice grimaced in sympathy but didn't stick around, trotting off to deliver more messages probably.

His muscles sore from yesterday's training, Sugawara wound his way down to his master's room and didn't wait to knock before walking in. Sunlight immediately blinded him, stepping out from the dim decor of the majority of the fortress into a brightly lit room. His master's room he'd always personally thought was more tasteful than many of the others – she had a window that faced the sea, for one, that faced the sunset, a few pot plants that she'd dug from random missions that she liked to keep and a wall tapestry depicting a crow flying over an artsy depiction of a twisted tower.

(Much better than bloodstains, stupid leader).

His master raised an eyebrow at his lack of manners when Sugawara didn't announce himself but shrugged it off. Part of what he loved about her, really. Any other master would've had him punished.

"Sugawara," she called, waving him over with a distracted hand. "I know you just finished your last mission a few days ago and you're due a rest, but I specially nabbed this mission for you."

When Sugawara approached, she pointed to a scroll on her desk which he picked up and read. "An important dignitary from Chou?" Sugawara read out loud. Chou was Wu's western neighbour, but also much, much smaller than their own country. Also, their clan usually dealt with internal affairs. He'd never left Wu before. "What's so special about this?"

His master carefully stopped writing, putting down her pencil. Then, with a mutter of _kinis_ and a wave of her hand, the door shut loudly behind him, making the secrecy wards slide out of the walls and automatically lock in place. The room was immediately silent except for their breathing, as Sugawara grew even more concerned. He was basically fodder - he'd never gotten a mission that ever needed the wards before.

Under his worried fretting, his master breathed out a sigh before steepling her fingers under her chin, eyes boring into his.

"The leader and the higher ups don't know who Chou is sending as a dignitary because Chou is keeping it secret," his master told him, frankly. "They just know that for the Emperor's Coming of Age, they have to send someone of great political value or it'll be an insult. The Emperor used this logic to decide that he wanted to kill the dignitary before he even comes over to our borders. This'll deal a blow to Chou without having to bother with any political mess after they arrive and we're tasked to protect the dignitary instead. Since apparently every other division is busy, the Emperor gave his mission to us. Since everyone thinks Chou is going to send some squishy dignitary over and all the higher ups are busy with the Coming of Age, this mission is ranked quite low. So I grabbed it for you."

Sugawara blinked, not used to all this information being sent his way. Usually it was just 'here's the dude you have to kill today,' and he'd leave.

"Uh... Okay. But why me?" Sugawara asked, thinking longingly of the three days of rest he was supposed to get after every mission. His bed. It was calling.

His master rolled her eyes, obviously knowing what he was thinking. "As I said, the higher-ups don't know who the dignitary is yet, so they just let whoever picked it up first have it," his master said patiently. "Unlike them though, I know who the target is."

Sugawara stilled. He'd long suspected his master had ulterior contacts, but having this blatantly confirmed was... surprising at best. No-one should put their guard down, and his master knew it best.

_How do you know?_ Was Sugawara's first question. Second, _why are you telling me this?_

"Your target is a very powerful person," she continued. "When you inevitably fail and he arrives in Wu, they'll presume you dead because no-one like us can defeat this man. That's why I took it for you."

His master smiled at him after she said all that, as if she didn't just blatantly say she was sending him to his death. And here he thought she liked him.

And he couldn't refuse. If he did, he'd get culled.

"Who is it?" He asked, paling, as she just kept smiling.

"Chou is sending their Great Sage, the Sage Nekomata, blessed by Prithvi," she replied simply.

Sugawara's mind took a moment to process what his master just said, because sage? Those legends, who were blessed by the gods, walked in their name, and wielded their power? They were so powerful that most books referred to them as another _species_. Although sages were seen as humans, the older they grew, the more power they held. Nekomata was widely known to be more than a hundred years old.

Sugawara gulped. "You want me to die?"

"No, I don't," his master immediately shook her head. "I want you to escape from here. Only the leader and I know your name, and the leader doesn't remember anyone's names anyway," she said light-heartedly, as if what she was saying wasn't the most treasonous thing ever. "This one of the few missions you'll get to leave Wu. So leave, do this mission, and once you meet the Great Sage ask him one thing. Tell him to change your divine name. After that, never come back to Wu. Never cross the borders. Don't look back." She paused, and stared expectantly at Sugawara as if he'd be able to process this all at once. Could process an offer of (freedom, dare he think it?) just like... that.

His master though, was having none of his dawdling. "Do you understand?" She demanded, tone sharpening.

Sugawara had learnt the clan's techniques like a duck to water – all those lessons told him that she wasn't lying.

Why him though? Why now?

_(But Sugawara had learnt early to never look at a gift-horse's mouth)_

"What about you?" Sugawara managed to ask, his brain whispering _treason this is treason report her disloyalty needs to be culled_ even as hope bloomed in his chest. His master's eyes gentled from her hard smile, reaching out a hand to pat Sugawara's head, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'stupid nugget' under her breath.

"You're the nugget," he whispered back as he clutched the mission scroll closer to his chest. And of course his master didn't miss that, having always been sharper, kinder, and better than the rest.

He...he worried. They were all each other had.

"Hey, I'll tell you a secret," his master suddenly interrupted his thinking. "My name. It's Michimiya."

Sugawara's eyes flew up. "What are you doing? If you give me your name, you'll—"

"I trust you. It's what friends do, I've heard," she cut him off, smile wry.

_Friend?_ He's heard the term used before, between fellow apprentices before they got inevitably backstabbed for the leader's favour. It didn't seem like that was what Michimiya was offering here. Her smile reminded him of all the descriptions within the books he sneakily read when he was out on missions, books he read and chucked into the sea so no-one knew, of friendships that grew from loyalty.

How old was she? Sugawara wondered for the first time. She looked at most like she was fifteen. Soon, she would be fully initiated. She wouldn't be able to…

"Go," Michimiya nodded, as another mutter of _kinis_ opened the door and Sugawara felt all the secrecy wards fade back into the walls. "Good luck," she continued, sounding disinterested and distant again, picking up her pencil.

Sugawara stared at her, indecision in his steps before one long silent glare from Michimiya made him leave her behind, scratching another report at her desk. He dared to glance back before he left the room, one small self-indulgent look.

If all succeeded, he wouldn't ever see her again. And in that moment, that early morning, she had a small dark ponytail slung low on her neck, heart-shaped face looking down at her stack of reports with determination. Like everyone within their clan, she wore black but gave herself distinction with a small red flower pin in her hair. Behind her, the smiley faces she drew on her flower-pots mocked him as the words he wanted to say got stuck in his throat. _Come with me_ , he didn't say. _Goodbye_ he couldn't say.

Without the wards, he couldn't even say any sort of thank you.

Sugawara went back to his locker to change, wrapping his arms and legs tight and tucking the ends neatly in. His hood went up next, and as he tucked the mission scroll into his pouch along with his supplies, he engraved the memory of her deep into his heart.

The window that he preferred leaving their fortress from had the best view of the sweeping coastline that their fortress was built on – the sea's gleam at the edge of the horizon, curving around the island that their base of operations worked off, built into a mess of sea crags and cliffs. The mainland was connected to their island by a secret tunnel whose entrance was hidden behind a booby-trapped cave. Chou, he knew, was a land-locked country. The sea was something he wouldn't see for a long time.

_"…Othis."_

Then he left, flickering out and landing heavily onto the ground with two rolls, before leaping forward, not daring to look behind.  


* * *

  
Chou was known for its position as a hub of commerce and culture, its wide, well-maintained roads and technological revolution that integrated magic into machinery had created a new era of prosperity for the country. It was also known for its stability through the risings of two Demon Kings, having sustained no major damage despite both calamities. Because of this, Chou's economy was one of the strongest and most developed within the continent, while its non-aggression policy led the country to rarely be attacked by other nations.

But the main reason, the largest reason for Chou's peace was the choice of the Great Sage Nekomata, decades back, to settle within the country as his home. His presence alone made all countries hesitate to attack Chou, or even offend it, and as such his presence was rightly exalted within the country.

Sages could move countries with words alone, a gesture could calm the seas, and a single judgment could doom a person to either the highest of heavens, or to the twelfth circle of hells. In fact, if talking about Nekomata, someone had recorded Nekomata single-handedly quelling a huge earthquake within Chou from one of the Demon King's tantrums ten years ago, leaving Chou unscathed in the midst of an age of turmoil and destruction.

So yeah, the half-baked info from his clan was right – if anyone ever succeeded in killing Nekomata, Chou would be dealt a nearly irreparable blow. Emphasis on the _if_ though. As if any assassin could stand against him. He'd probably twitch an eyebrow, and the assassin would be dead and buried under the ground.

All this information ran through Sugawara's mind as he picked his way across the border, sticking to the dodgier mountain roads, mind-map in his eye. In the nervous running commentary in his mind, Sugawara went through all the scenarios of his death if his appeal didn't succeed, or if Michimiya had been too optimistic about Nekomata's kindness.

Maybe it was because of this nervousness, but it took him a week to find Nekomata after entering Chou. Not in any fancy, bourgeois hotels along the roads as befitting his status or anything though.

No, Sugawara found Nekomata meditating in the middle of a forest clearing comfortably far from civilisation, rich clothes dirtied from sitting on the ground. He looked like a wrinkled old man, unremarkable to the eye if not for some grass and plants in his hair. Skin darkened from a tan and smile lines deepset, there was something homey about him, even if the slant of his eyes suggested something a little slyer. Comforting. It took Sugawara by surprise, because besides his master, he'd never felt any sort of liking for anybody. 

When Sugawara gathered his qi into his eyes, the power Nekomata held inside his frame blazed so brightly he had to immediately let his qi go. If their leader was considered powerful with two torch's worth of power, Nekomata was like looking at the sun during the hottest summer afternoon. Sugawara felt a chill right to his very bones.

The books weren't joking. Sages were monsters. If Nekomata turned hostile, he'd never escape.

Sugawara paused, fingers tightening on the tree-branch as he made to drop, stopping him in the last second. His mind whirred. Can this person really free him? Despite his power and the weird comforting feeling (Sugawara suspected mind-influencing qi arts), Nekomata didn't look especially charitable or kind. His face was a little too angular and gaunt for that. On second look, the smile lines on his face looked more like smirk lines than smile lines.

But Michimiya had never been wrong, and he… he trusted her. Trusts her. She went out on a limb for him, gave him this chance that she could've used for herself. At that, he stopped short, and forced his thoughts to stop _thinking_ , and imagined her face when she handed the mission to him – honest, straight-forward. Hopeful, for him.

_(Why, Michimiya?)_

_("I heard that's what friends do.")_

He dropped down from his tree on faith alone. Perfectly silent, he approached. Not even a blade of grass bent underneath his approach.

"Hmm," Nekomata hummed, eyes still closed. "Assassin? That foot technique gives you away, you know."

Sugawara froze at the edge of the clearing.

"Strange though," Nekomata mused, slowly opening a pair of surprisingly shrewd, beady eyes. "I don't sense any bloodlust from you."

Looking into Nekomata's eyes was like looking into the universe in the deepest part of night, overwhelming and unknowable. Sugawara grit his teeth though, and stepped forward into the afternoon light against all of his training. He twisted his wrists – his poisoned blades were still in his sleeve. If his appeal failed, he could still attack as a distraction for his escape.

"Great Sage!" He didn't wait, dropping onto both knees and laying his forehead on the back of his fingers. "Allow me to make a request!" At the silence that followed, Sugawara ploughed on. "Please change my divine name!"

Granted that Sugawara had directed most of his qi to his ears to perceive any sounds since his posture was so compromised, the undetected hand that gently pulled his shoulders up nearly made him stab the man from reflex. Whoops. He gently slid his blades back into his sleeves.

"You… where do you come from?" Nekomata asked, squinting at his face.

Sugawara opened his mouth to reply, but the restrictions choked him before he could give any details at all. Nekomata narrowed his eyes as Sugawara gasped for air, choking on the spells that constricted his throat.

"What's your name?" Nekomata tried again.

Again, Sugawara forced his jaws to open without making a noise.

"Whoever they are, they're controlling you by your divine title?" Nekomata asked, voice deep and patient. "Well, easily fixed." With that, Nekomata focused on something above Sugawara's head that he couldn't see and reached out with a glowing green hand. With a few casual scribbles, the green faded into the air and the words bubbled out of his throat.

"-name is Sugawara, I come from Wu, the nineteenth faction of military dealing with internal politics..." Sugawara stopped in surprise, touching his throat with a puzzled frown. He'd expected more... flash. "You did it already?"

"I got rid of all the pesky tracking and suicide curses too, if you want to know," Nekomata replied, sinking back into sitting cross-legged in front of him, squinting eyes still fixed on his face as if he was searching for something. "That you come from Wu isn't that surprising. Only fifteen divisions of military my _ass_."

Nekomata's withered face looked annoyed after his comment, and Sugawara didn't quite know what to say. His life was saved just like… that. A literal swipe of a finger.

Weren't sages a little… too powerful?

"Thank you," he started, hesitantly, already wondering what to do in the future. What was he supposed to do now?

"Do you have a personal name, Sugawara?" Nekomata asked randomly, beady eyes intent.

"Not one I know of," Sugawara replied.

"Do you have anywhere to go?" was the next question.

Where was this leading?

"No, I have made no plans," Sugawara replied.

Nekomata narrowed his eyes, before tutting his tongue. "Well, I'll go on to Wu and I can pretend that I killed an assassin that came for my life. That was your plan, right?" Nekomata chuckled at Sugawara's surprise (and slight panic) for being so easily read. "It's alright, I'm a good actor. While I do that, go to Chou's capital city with this pass."

Sugawara accepted the pass with both hands, curious. "What do want in exchange for your generosity?" Sugawara asked, subtly tracing qi over the piece of paper that he'd been given for traps, trackers… Nothing.

"I'm going to take you in as my apprentice. You're a smart kid, and I'm getting old anyway. Taking in one of little Ukai's kids is just a bonus, really."

...Who was Ukai? 

Also, "Apprentice?" Sugawara gaped. "But I am an assassin, sent to kill you. From Wu. Even I know no one likes Wu, and I'm from Wu!"

"Once you're my apprentice, you'll be officially recognised as a Chou citizen," Nekomata answered simply, scratching his neck with a yawn. "You'll need a name though. What about Koushi? Sugawara Koushi seems like it'll suit you."

Nekomata placidly blinked then, stilling to wait for his answer while Sugawara grappled with the understanding that he'd been offered an official identity, a name, a citizenship and a place to live all at once. What was the catch? Where was it?

"Aren't you afraid that someone will track me down?" Sugawara asked to stall his answer, still trying to find the catch. There must be a catch somewhere.

"Does anyone know your name?" Nekomata asked back. Michimiya's smiling face filled his mind, but she would never tell. The leader well... (he was stupid). "And will anyone from your old division go to Chou and recognise you?"

"No-one that can't be trusted knows my name," Sugawara replied, "and our nineteenth faction mostly deals with the internal affairs."

Sugawara stopped short. Huh. His eyes drew back down to look at the black turtle crest of Chou on the paper pass. There... wasn't much reason not to accept.

"That answers it. It's not as if I can't deal with anyone they send after you anyway, so. Are you going to accept?" Nekomata asked again, pointing at the pass in Sugawara's hand. "I mean, you can keep it to enter the city and not be my apprentice, but it'll be hard for a kid like you to fit in if you do. I can protect you while teaching you cool stuff."

Opportunities were just dropping into his lap, but Sugawara had always learnt not to look at the gift-horse in the mouth (or you'll get burned). He had nothing to lose. If this was a trap, then it wouldn't be any worse than where he came from anyway.

"I accept."

Nekomata smiled. "Good, good. Now, my first request for you, my new apprentice, is to cut all that hair off." Sugawara blinked, before pointing at the grey hair that had been neatly tied back into a ponytail as per Wu standards. It reached his elbows at his longest. "Yeah, that hair. I'm not used to your face with long hair, it's weird. Cut it short and fluffy."

Uh…

Sugawara shuffled off to cut his hair, and when he came back Nekomata nodded approvingly, the plants in his hair bobbing with the movement. With a closer look, Sugawara was surprised to notice that it wasn't that the plants were in his hair because the wind had blown them there or anything, but because the plants were growing out of his _scalp_. Woah.

"Undeniable now, yeah," Nekomata said as he put his hand on his chin. "Very Sugawara," he continued with atrocious grammar. "Koushi, how old are you?"

"Eight, nearly nine," Sugawara replied with his eyes still trained on Nekomata's hair, fascinated.

"Ugh, Wu. Child soldiers are bad enough, but child assassins? Well, don't worry, Koushi," Nekomata patted Sugawara's shoulder. "I'm going to let you act your age when we get back to Chou!" Then the old man started a wheezy loud laugh, and Sugawara stoically bore the sudden laughing fit with his rapidly acquired skill to put up with the absurd. 

If the old man wanted to play saviour, who was he to complain?  


* * *

  
Sugawara made the trip to Chou alone, still vaguely paranoid about pursuers even after spending a week around Nekomata who kept eyeing his twitchy behaviour with increasing annoyance until he ultimately gave Sugawara a protective pendant that 'removes tracking stuff and never let anyone put any spell you don't want on you ever again now calm down you're giving me the heeby jeebies dagnabbit.'

After presenting the pass Nekomata gave him at the gates of Chou's capital along with a letter, the guards took one look at it and grinned.

"Old man Nekomata finally accepted an apprentice guys!" One of the guards yelled backwards, and suddenly all the windows around the gate was filled with curious eyes and faces, staring at him, yelling curious questions, whispering among themselves. The guard he was talking to also grinned back at him, handing him back the pass and the letter. "Where did Nekomata dig you up from? With that getup, you must be a ninja of sorts, right?"

Ninja – on missions, Sugawara had stolen a few hours here and there before going back to their hideout to struggle through children's books in a few bookstores in Wu. Ninja threw kunai, wore black, and in the books, killed for justice.

"Yeah. Kind of," Sugawara replied with a shrug. "Are you going to question my origins now?"

He mentally pulled up the fabricated backstory he'd created while coming here in preparation, but was surprised out of it when a friendly hand patted his head. The guard gave him a blinding grin.

"Kid, stop being so serious! Anyway, if old man Nekomata accepted you, we trust him enough not to ask questions. I mean, he even says in his letter not to ask questions and that he just 'liked you' so," the guard shrugged. "He does that a lot. I mean, he did that to me and helped me get my job too, you know? He's a nice guy. Anyway, I'm being rude! What's your name?"

"Sugawara… Koushi," Sugawara carefully replied, and the guard grinned enthusiastically.

"I'm Inuoka Sou! Nice to meet you!" Taking off his helmet, Inuoka shook free his spiky brown hair with relief, before gesturing at him in a friendly enough fashion, Sugawara supposed, smile blinding.

"Yeah. Me too."

Inuoka's smile did not dim at all from Sugawara's less than enthused greeting, and simply just wheeled around and yelled, "I'm ditching you guys to lead this guy to the palace okay?" up to the gate's other guards. They all booed him when they passed, jokingly telling him he was abusing his 'captain privileges'.

Conversely, they gave Sugawara smiles and waves and wishes for him to 'check by' later, and their curious eyes followed them until they turned the corner.

Sugawara was overwhelmed.

"They're a handful," Inuoka said pretty cheerily as he led Sugawara through a loud, bustling bazaar with merchants yelling about their _limited, be careful not to miss sales!_ "But Nekomata likes personally checking how everyone's doing around the city so you'll meet them all soon enough!"

"They seemed nice," Sugawara replied when Inuoka paused, expectant. The guard beamed at his comment, before laughing.

"Yeah, we're all friends!" Inuoka then continued to chatter about the other guards as he skilfully led Sugawara through the streets, sticking to less crowded areas when he noticed that Sugawara was uncomfortable with the crush of people.

With the exception of Nekomata and maybe his training instructors, he'd never been talked at so much before. Not even by Michimiya.

"Here's the palace! Wait a sec, gimme back the pass and letter for a bit? I need to show this to the palace guards. Don't worry, I'm pals with them so it'll be quick." Inuoka jogged forward, pass and letter in hand and greeted the guards standing outside the palace gate warmly, gesturing excitedly at Sugawara while the other guards read the letter. Sugawara approached when they all smiled at him, gripping his pendant.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you. My name is Sugawara Koushi. Please take care of me," Sugawara greeted formally with a small bow that was similar enough to Wu custom thankfully. But all Inuoka did was laugh, as Sugawara was quickly learning that he seemed to do that all the time.

"See?" _Laugh._ "The kid talks like an old guy!" _Laugh._ "Anyway, take care of him for me. Maybe lead him to the old man's cottage so that he can set things up and wait for Nekomata to come back?" _Laugh._

Why did he laugh so much?

"Sure thing, Inuoka," the palace guard replied with an easy shrug, before eyeing Sugawara and tilting his head. "Come on, short stuff. Let's get going."  


* * *

  
Wu and Chou couldn't have been more different. Sugawara had reported to Wu's capital more than a few times, but there the atmosphere had been more formal, more distant as people hurried from place to place to do their daily things. Even though Chou was just as large and busy, the people were just so insistently… nosy.

Sugawara was undecided if he liked this or not. He did, however, decidedly like his new living quarters.

Back in Wu, all the apprentices lived in metal bunks, ten people per room until they levelled up, so to speak. Nekomata's cottage however, was a surprisingly small and humble affair right next to the entrance to the biggest of the palace's royal gardens, as well as the servant's entrance to the kitchens. The maids, in the time it took for him to walk from the gate to the cottage when he'd first arrived, had already miraculously set up a small room inside the cottage, with a small bed and extra clothes for him to wear in an acceptable size. The room, although small, was neatly furnished with everything he'd ever need. The mattress, he found when he bounced on it, was also surprisingly soft compared to his lifetime of one centimeter thick cotton mats.

(For some reason everything was patterned in green plaid. Why plaid? Even the window sill was painted in that pattern. Nekomata must really love that pattern).

After changing into a green plaid shirt and loose grey pants, Sugawara had planned to scout the premises for escape routes before he'd been caught by a loitering Inuoka and dragged back to the outer guard houses to… uncomfortably sit while everyone tried to get him to open up. Inuoka was surprisingly sly - knowing Sugawara was trying his best to be polite, he'd twist Sugawara into staying longer by playing the 'haha, its custom to finish drinks before leaving in Chou, Sugawara!' _cue laughter here_ and similar cards.

Sugawara was so onto that manipulation that he vowed to memorise all the weird rules Inuoka plied him with and parrot them back to him one day.

This happened every day – one day he saw a few of the maids and gardeners peeking at him with curiosity and giggling and waving at him. The next, one of the palace servants politely chided him for trying to do his own laundry. He became a steady fixture at the palace kitchens, where one of the small tables there had a small blanket for Sugawara because he kept falling asleep to the warm smell of baking bread and roast.

The guards were always especially friendly, always willing to drag an unwilling Sugawara to various activities throughout the day (they never took him to training again though, because he'd humiliatingly trounced them all that one time).

He got used to the older aunties tutting over him surprisingly quickly. Every morning, he woke up to a large plate of breakfast on Nekomata's dining table. At lunch, a good-willed servant would somehow reliably find wherever he'd wandered to and give him lunch in a basket. Dinner varied – sometimes with people, sometimes in the kitchen, and sometimes by himself as he processed another new fact of life he'd never known.

Nekomata came back from Wu a month later, and smiled in satisfaction when he saw that Sugawara had made himself at home with only one or two grumbles about 'cohabitation mess ugh'.

"How do you like Chou?" Nekomata asked that night, as Sugawara stumbled his way through reporting his experiences in a way that didn't sound like a military report, as per Nekomata's request. Sugawara stopped his faltering description of Inuoka's mother (who kept handing him too many jam-breads but had a smile that reminded him of Michimiya, hard and caring and protective).

"Different," Sugawara admitted to the crackling fireplace. "But I like it. I think."

"That's good," Nekomata said as he drifted off, plant-hair drooping with his eyes as he nodded off. Sugawara watched, before going to fetch a blanket and tucking it around him.  


* * *

  
His apprenticeship with Nekomata didn't change much of his daily routine. Sugawara, having rested for a whole month, felt extremely rusty when he trained his skills again, and it took more than a few months to get back into shape. During that time, Nekomata would either check on random things around the city just like Inuoka said, or watch him train as he did his own sagey meditations and experiments, most of which he seemed to do in the royal gardens with no seeming conscience as he blew up some bush or other. Sugawara watched with growing amusement through the months as he realised that yes, Nekomata did smirk more than smile, and he did have a surprisingly an intimidating competitive analytical streak, but he was also genuinely kind.

He also liked to butt into Sugawara's business as much as possible. Nekomata couldn't say much about his assassin's techniques, but when he saw his qi arts and poison skills, he was full of complaints and judgey raised eyebrows.

"Your magic is so primitive!" Nekomata complained from his rocking chair, where he'd gone to rest after gardening. He aggressively rocked back and forth as he stewed in obvious annoyance at Sugawara's feats of assassin-ry. "Who even needs to mutter _othis_ to activate anything related to enhancement anyway? Babies, that's who!"

"Magic?" Sugawara echoed, having bounded over to Nekomata's side within half a breath. "You mean qi?"

"Qi, magic, chi, mana, whatever, it's all the same," Nekomata waved off. "Now, tell my why you mumble othis every time you need to do magic."

"It's how I was taught," Sugawara answered. "It's how our… magic was found in the first place."

Nekomata made a disgusted face. "You mean, that rubbish _spitha othis _crystal test that no-one uses anymore?"__

Sugawara didn't want to think back on it, but "Yeah."

Nekomata sighed. "We have a long way to go then," Nekomata grumbled, before slowly getting up, waving one irritated hand for Sugawara to follow. "Okay, Koushi. Listen up. There are two main types of magic – _spitha_ , which affects and enhances the world around you and _othis_ , which enhances your own body to go beyond its limits…"

Nekomata was surprisingly knowledgeable.

A week later, with Nekomata's words in mind, Sugawara focused.

" _Spitha_ is the type of magic that requires all the chanting and learning new words," Nekomata lectured, "But _othis_ , when learned, you should be able to theoretically activate and focus without chants at all. It's your own magic, used in your own body. There's no leakage, no waste. The limits are your own."

Just like Nekomata said, without the chant in front, othis was harder to control because it felt more slippery without an active word to control it, but it was also more… limitless in its potential. It was just the manipulation of qi within his body - usually qi was intertwined with the life-force of blood, and to pull it away and use was the sacrifice that was needed to affect the world. Nekomata however just waved that away as _spitha_ magic, which Sugawara had no talent for anyway. Bodily othis magic however, required no sacrifice - it was just manipulation, Sugawara realised.

He learnt to push the qi around his body in a week, as he separated qi from the flow of his blood and soul. Welling it around his ears and his brain led him to have better hearing, stretching it along the stretch of his core and legs let him jump, and pooling it on his skin made it more waterproof and somewhat resistant to blunt physical attacks. And activating it without _othis_ was... freeing.

When he showed it off to Nekomata later, Nekomata hummed in surprise. "Good job," Nekomata praised after Sugawara flickered from the end of the palace gardens to land without a whisper of gravity in front of Nekomata's chair. "But damn you caught on quickly. Inuoka took half a year to learn that. Are you sure you don't remember a place called Japan?" He prodded.

"I already said no," Sugawara replied, exasperated, gradually letting go of his inner qi to roll his shoulders. "I've checked maps before, and a place like that doesn't exist. Are you going to show me how to mix that miracle antidote you told me about before or not? I'll go back to training if you don't."

"Ugh, kids," Nekomata complained, even as he stood up with Sugawara's steady arm to help. "Already lipping back. Well, genius, let's see you try learning one of my most famous neutralisers! It'll bring the one you know to shame!"

It did bring the one Sugawara knew to shame, but he also did learn it on the first try. Nekomata was miffed throughout the rest of the day, only ending his childish silent treatment when Sugawara came back from the kitchens with a few choice bottles of sake.  


* * *

  
Four years passed this way without incident – Sugawara learnt all the guard's names, friendliest to Inuoka's unit, of which Nekomata seemed absurdly pleased to hear. He kept his assassin's skills sharp even when there wasn't much of a point, and the first time he laughed was cooed over, in his opinion, much too obsessively by everyone around him.

The first time he met King Naoi was when the King himself visited Nekomata's cottage while he and Nekomata had been enjoying a quiet dinner. The King's strong jaw and lively face had been overshadowed by his dismay when all Nekomata reacted to his presence was to grunt, 'yeah, that's Naoi. I mentored him for a while so he keeps coming back for advice like a dependent puppy,' of which Sugawara nodded seriously.

"Nekomata!" The king complained, "That's too savage even for you! Right when I dug out time out of my busy schedule to visit your official apprentice that you _didn't introduce me to._ "

"What's the point?" Nekomata grinned, having got up to get a few bottles of sake he always kept stocked within a cupboard. "Oh yeah, Koushi, that's the King by the way."

Sugawara blinked at the new information, looked at how Nekomata was acting before he ducked a quick bow and continued to eat dinner like nothing had happened.

Naoi was suitably exasperated. "Like apprentice, like master," the king had groaned humorously, before engaging in a drinking match with Nekomata (of which Nekomata lost miserably). Sugawara had to help Naoi sneak back into his rooms because _'people can't catch me drunk, help me!'_

But by then, Sugawara had expected such things from Chou already. So all he did was laugh and maybe used some secret assassin skills to deliver the King back to his room. It wasn't the worst application of his skills really. It was ultimately funny to see Naoi collapse in the room with relief only to be greeted with his unimpressed butler.

It was the summer of his twelfth year when something new happened, when he met someone that once again, changed his life.  


* * *

  
"Koushi," Nekomata's voice called from downstairs, and Sugawara quickly stopped his evening katas on the roof and slung himself through the kitchen window. Nekomata had long given up trying to make him go through doors like everyone else and usually left a window or two open.

Besides, Nekomata was getting on in the years, and sometimes (to his utterly grumpy consternation), he had to get help in reaching for the higher shelves and windows was just Sugawara's fastest way of travel. So he went feet first through the window and landed with a lazy stretch, before walking to creaking overloaded bookshelf underneath the stairs.

"Do you need the book on the effects of different pollens on bees, or that one about the benefits of nature magic on plant cells?" Sugawara asked, already eyeing the two books that Nekomata had wanted to pull out the most the past month for his nightly reading.

"No, it's not about books," Nekomata grimaced at the reminder of his age, before waving a hand at the table where dinner had already been laid out. "By the way, dinner. It'll be good to… eat first. Probably."

Sugawara sat down and finished dinner warily. In all the years he'd been here, Nekomata had never been so out of ease. The old man always liked to 'go with the flow' in his somewhat playful, light-hearted fashion. It probably helped that he was one of the most powerful creatures in existence, but still.

Nekomata coughed. "Well, I first wanted to call you down because I thought that this news would be interesting to you – the Lord Azumane is sending his son and his personal guard to study and live at the palace for reasons, and as they're the same age as you I thought it was a good time for you to have friends your own age. Inuoka doesn't count," Nekomata cut off Sugawara's protest that he had _friends_. "He's seven years older than you, and already past all the bonding experiences that you can only have with people you go through teenage angst with."

"Okay, so?" Sugawara asked after he digested the information. "Where are these new friends?"

"That's the thing," Nekomata's face settled into a scowl (and Sugawara worried a little, because weren't his cheeks growing a little too hollow?). "They were supposed to arrive this morning. Communications have been cut off from where they were staying last night too, so I'm getting a little concerned. I was just going to ask you to race down Nishi road and check if they got into trouble or something?"

Sugawara looked at Nekomata, before tilting his head. "You don't think it's that simple."

"Nope. I don't want to wake bad memories in you or anything, but would you…"

Sugawara smiled. "No worries, I got it. Your apprentice is pretty capable now, you know?" His grin made Nekomata relax a little, and Sugawara counted that as a win before heading upstairs.

Pulling on some loose black pants and shirts, he wrapped them tight to his legs and arms like old days. His pouch and holster were filled with poisoned weapons once again, and his trusty tantō now hung from his belt. Forgoing any sort of hood or mask, Sugawara activated his qi and leapt out the window from old habit, speeding towards the west road.  


* * *

  
Sugawara was glad that it was hard to slip back into his assassin mindset, and when it did the fit was like an old, stretched glove, thin and easy to break. Good.

Completely silent in his passing except the occasional rustle of leaves, he headed along Nishi road with a keen eye, but even his eyes boosted with qi didn't see any overturned carriages or bandit attacks.

When Sugawara reached the end of Nishi road, he tapped chin in thought. Lord Azumane, Nekomata had said, and any lord's son wouldn't live in any drab inns or anything. Since there weren't any high class places anywhere near Nishi, the Azumane's son must have stayed at a neighbouring lord's castle as a guest. The castle for the Nishi fief was… Sugawara looked at the moon and calculated, before he started sprinting back the way he came.

Sugawara smelt the fire before he saw the red glow beyond the farmland, bright against darkness. The fire must've been recent, since Sugawara hadn't noticed it when he passed it before. He quickened his pace, and flashed through the village to land in front of the burning castle, where harried servants were already trying their best to put out the bits of fire they could see.

Quickly, he pulled at one of the panicking servants outside who was watching the fire.

"What happened?" He asked a crying maid, flashing Nekomata's crest.

"The sage's…" she breathed, before sniffing and trying to compose herself. "Reinforcements from the capital?" When Sugawara nodded, the maid coughed but didn't question his age, thank goodness. "Our Lord welcomed Azumane-sama and his retinue yesterday, but because of a bandit attack Azumane-sama was injured and was welcome to stay one more day. We were planning to send a missive this morning to the capital, but the bandits that attacked Azumane-sama proved not to be so simple and demanded his removal from our Lord's grounds. Our Lord refused, of course, but they had prepared a ward beforehand, and no-one could leave the village grounds."

The fire was probably the attackers growing impatient with their siege and attacking. Sugawara was slightly late.

"What does Azumane look like?"

"A tall, rough-looking boy," the maid answered quickly. "But he's very gentle, very kind. He wears loose, red robes, with his family crest on them. Brown eyed…"

"That's enough, thank you" Sugawara smiled at the maid, before drawing his mask over his mouth and nose. Quickly dipping himself into a decorative fountain, he plunged inside the castle.

The attackers had clearly spread oil as they invaded, as the heavy sharp stink tinged the smoke that lit up the flames that trailed up in one slick black line up the corridors. His leather zori didn't stand much of a chance a few minutes inside as they spontaneously combusted from the trapped heat, but his skin was only barely licked when Sugawara raced forward, barely feeling the flames.

To find the little Azumane lord, all Sugawara had to do was follow his ears. Underneath the crackle of flames, beyond the struggles of still trapped servants, there was the clash of guards and bandits, and the vague ripples of magic that indicated the more adept, personal guards. Up two floors, on the right.

Sugawara changed his course and went through his favourite way of travel – out the window and up the walls outside. He swung straight through the window up into the corridor of the conflict, and immediately saw an ornate door at the end that two uniformed guards were protecting, while a highly armed group was throwing fire at the guards using some lit up lamps and surrounding fire.

Aah, two fire qi users. No wonder they were so careless with their use of fire.

He reached the back of the attacking group in an instant, and a few quick punches and a kick later, four out of seven were down. Although Sugawara had targeted the qi users first, one of them had noticed him and escaped behind a red barrier.

Well, no worries.

Sugawara breathed deep and concentrated his own qi into his fist, knocking away one of the attackers left with his right elbow while he let his fist fly after a full-body rotation. In the moment before his fist touched the barrier, his own fist glowed a dull red.

_'Internal qi, integrated into bone, is always solid. External qi depends on the will-power of those who wield it.'_ That was one of the first lessons that he'd been taught by Michimiya, back when he was still learning the perfect fist, her fingers gently guiding his own for the most efficient way to force a punch.

A fire qi user who couldn't even generate his own flame couldn't possibly match up to him.

The barrier shattered, and the fire qi user with it, flying into the wall with the strength of his fist. The remaining two that he'd neglected had been taken down by the castle guards in the meantime, and they stood in rest in front of him now, sweating and wary, but on less of a guard. After a deep breath through his mask, Sugawara retracted his qi back into his core and smiled, taking a leaf out of Inuoka's book and laughing.

"It wasn't very nice of them to gang up on you guys like that," Sugawara said cheerily, as he pulled out Nekomata's crest. "I'm the Sage's apprentice, Sugawara Koushi. The Sage got worried when Azumane's retinue didn't arrive?"

The castle guards visibly slumped when they saw Nekomata's crest.

"Thank you for saving us," one of the men bowed to him while the other started leading them down the corridor. "The door is barricaded from the inside, so we have to take a secret passage into the Lady's room…"

"Is it just that room?" Sugawara asked, pointing backwards towards the fancy barricaded door. "Does it have a window?"

"The room has a small balcony on the other side of the building…"

"Okay," Sugawara shrugged, before slinging one of the guards beneath his arm and told the other to 'wait there please'. He slammed one of the corridor windows open and jumped outside, his fingers finding a ledge to swing them around the corner and onto aforementioned small balcony. He gently set the guard down amidst the surprised cries from within the room before quickly going back and doing the same to the second guard.

As he left the second guard to recover, the first guard had already quickly reached an old, finely dressed man and was reporting the incident. "…and then the Sage's apprentice appeared as reinforcements and delivered us here," the guard concluded, and the old man nodded, stroking his beard as he stood tall and dignified. "We owe you our thanks," the Lord smiled at Sugawara, who smiled.

"I'm only glad I reached you on time! Nekomata got worried when Azumane didn't arrive," Sugawara waved off the thanks. "Speaking of which, do you want me to transfer you outside to safety before continuing this conversation?" Sugawara nodded to all the occupants in the room, the Lord, Lady, one rough-looking well-dressed boy (as the maid described), and a few personal servants before gesturing at the burning building at large. Because well, burning building. Why were they talking in here?

"Please," the Lord answered for them all, and Sugawara took that as permission to ask the Lord to cling onto his back. "It might be a little undignified," Sugawara apologised, but the Lord just shook his head and somehow made being piggy-backed by a twelve year old somewhat stately and graceful. His powers of accepting the absurd was even higher than Sugawara's, he'd reckon. Impressive, really. 

"Please, proceed," the Lord continued, and Sugawara did, jumping out the window down to a tree he'd eyed with good strong branches. The branch creaked, the Lord may have given a small, dignified girlish scream (how? Sugawara wondered), but a few more hops later, Sugawara unloaded the Lord from his back to a group of servants and village soldiers.

"My Lord!" They all greeted, and it didn't take the Lord two seconds before he was already composed and taking charge of the chaos. Impressive. Sugawara nodded in approval and jumped back up.

Making the trip eight times was a little bit of a chore, but when it came to gathering the last one, the Azumane's son, the boy refused to climb on his back.

Sugawara stared at the reason why he was here stutter through a thoroughly weak excuse as to not escape a _burning building_.

"I c-can't," the boy stuttered, clenching his sleeves. "Daichi's still here, he was leading a diversion!"

For a boy looking like he was on the verge of hyperventilation, Sugawara thought that Azumane was surprisingly articulate. Maybe he was a little addled from smoke inhalation?

"He said he'll come back to this room, and someone has to let him in!" Azumane continued blathering, and Sugawara felt sympathy, honestly, but the room was going to combust soon from heat alone and he was running out of patience.

"Who is Daichi?" He asked conversationally, debating whether he should just haul the boy up and go. Ah, but Nekomata said that he wanted them to become friends. First impressions, got to think about first impressions...

"My best friend," the gangly boy replied as he wrung his hands. "He's my personal guard, but he just started the job because he only became our official vassal two weeks ago. Oh, I shouldn't have made my father let him come with me…"

"Okay, Azumane," Sugawara said with patience. "Let me get you out of here, and I will save this Daichi after this."

"B-but you're the same age as me!"

"I've been ferrying all the people out of this third storey room through jumping alone," Sugawara dead-panned. "Believe me when I say I can do more than that. Also, please answer quickly, the building just _might_ be on fire?"

Azumane blinked, before looking around the smoking room as if he'd honestly not noticed that the room was empty, before light lit in his eyes. "Oh, yes, yes! Please save Daichi! He should be on the other side of the castle, near the kitchens!"

Finally. It took less than half a minute to settle Azumane to safety, before with a put-upon sigh, he raced around the side of the mansion to fulfil his promise. He did know the general layout of castles however, and veered towards where kitchens generally were.

He noticed a few dead guards and randomly dressed attackers near the back of the castle fighting some survivors. He let the guards to it, since they seemed to be winning. Further in, within a random corridor sounded a clang of metal and a few yells of pain accompanied by victorious evil laughs that didn't sound particularly good, so Sugawara veered in and attacked the first unhelmeted head he saw. In a flash of limbs and the sing of qi in his veins, Sugawara made short work of the other opponents before kneeling down in front of an exhausted guard, who had given him a smile of thanks.

"Do you know a Daichi, Azumane's guard?"

The guard coughed from the smoke, but pointed further into the castle. "Sawamura led most of the group into believing he was fleeing towards Azumane's location. They followed him past the kitchen, I don't know where he went. Thanks for the save."

Patting the guard on the back and hauling him outside into clearer air, Sugawara nodded and continued racing down the corridor until he saw a flicker of blue light, clearly magic. It was bright enough that it silhouetted the group of fifteen that was attacking it. 

Well, well, his brain mused in interest. No wonder such a young boy (he'd gotten the impression from Azumane that Sawamura Daichi must not be an old, grizzled man) was chosen to be the personal guard of a Lord's son. Such an advanced barrier user huh...

When he drew near, he realised that the blue light was a repulsion ward etched onto a large shield, planted in front of a small door. A glance told him it was impressive work for an emergency.

Behind the shield was a tuft of black hair, where a person was clearly holding the shield steady.

Most likely Sawamura Daichi, Sugawara concluded even as he dove in to double-neck chop down two people, quickly followed by a leg sweep and solar plexus stomp to immobilise another two. Punching an armored man's armpit before quickly snapping a kick between the legs, Sugawara barely dodged a launched fireball from a shout of 'Look out!' from behind the shield. A fire qi user had backed up out of his reach, and was already generating another fireball from the surrounding smoke and flame.

Sugawara narrowed his eyes.

Ah, how unsightly. Maybe fifteen to one was a bit too much for hand-to-hand combat. Back to his forte then, fingers dipping into his weapon's pouch.

A few well thrown kunai and poisoned needles later, Sugawara picked himself up and kicked a few groaning enemies in the back of the head to make sure they were knocked out before walking towards the shield that a boy his age had hunched protectively over a small door. The blue bubble of a repulsion ward flickered and disintegrated into the air as he approached, letting Sugawara near to crouch near the black tuft of hair peeking over the shield.

"Hello, are you Sawamura Daichi?" Sugawara asked conversationally, friendly smile on his face. "I'm here on the tearful demand of Azumane, who was very worried about you!"

A weak cough greeted his answer, as the shield was pushed away, revealing a pleasant enough face.

"Hi. The way you took out those people was…" Daichi coughed. "Was really cool. You said Asahi was worried for me?"

Sugawara nodded. "Practically crying," he shared. "Now, lemme get you out of here." Sugawara tugged at a limp arm, and frowned when the other boy didn't lift. Daichi just… flopped sideways. "Hey. Get up." When Sugawara heaved, Daichi's body surprisingly didn't move at all.

That… wasn't right. Sugawara was quite confident on his strength – strength shouldn't be an issue. He'd once lifted an obnoxious golden statue that King Naoi hadn't liked that was three times his size without sweat. Daichi was way less than that.

"I tricked them into thinking this door was the secret passage to the Lord's room," Daichi said in answer to his confusion. "Then I sank myself into the rock, so I didn't need as much strength to steady my shield and wards. But," Daichi grinned, "I don't think I have enough magic to get myself out again."

Indeed, now that he noticed, Daichi was in a sitting position, legs sank into the stone floor of the castle. Sugawara could only see the top slant of his thighs before his legs disappeared into stone. Impressive use of magic again. Daichi was just as impressive as he'd thought he was, if he could draw wards and manipulate stone in an emergency without harming himself. Maybe Nekomata's friend recommendations weren't that strange after all?

But the next thing that came out of Daichi's mouth made Sugawara's opinion of him plummet.

"It was an honour anyway, to die protecting Asahi, I guess," Daichi murmured, smoke clearly getting to him now that there was no need to fight to stay awake. "Kinda dumb though. This is just my first mission. Asahi the type who needs someone to kick him into gear, totally useless…"

Sugawara stared down at this face (what was he looking so peaceful for?), before feeling irritated. Really irritated. He slapped Daichi on the face, hard enough for a sting _and_ a bruise (hah!), enough for Daichi to startle awake.

"Huh?" Daichi said, comically confused as he jerked back into dazed consciousness.

Sugawara's eyes were intentionally blank as he leaned down closer to this Sawamura Daichi, who seemed to be under some brainwashed delusion that Sugawara had to clear right now.

"I've seen enough death," Sugawara replied quietly. "The only _honour_ in death will be your own. Everyone else you know will grieve, and the satisfaction in dying for your honour is a lie to make you feel better as you die. There isn't even glory here, since you're so young. You're my age, aren't you? Twelve? No-one important will remember you."

"Wha-what? No, I'm thirteen! Wait no, that's not the point!" Daichi spluttered. "What type of words is that to someone near death?"

"You're not near death," Sugawara dismissed, eyes still boring into the wide stare that Daichi had on his face. "You're suffering from smoke inhalation. Your qi is low, but there's still enough that you can get yourself out of the rock. The smoke inhalation I can fix slightly." Sugawara unhooked his mask then, grimacing with the full force of the smoke hit his nose, before covering Daichi's face with it. "This mask is one I use when mixing poison – it filters anything near perfectly. There, you can breathe."

"You…" Daichi tried to reply after gulping down large coughs of filtered air, eyes round on Sugawara's face.

"Now you have a choice," Sugawara replied simply, his own qi rapidly expending as he tried to keep the smoke damaging his body. He might have to grudgingly give a few redeeming kudos to this Daichi if he withstood this smoke for so long. "You either guarantee a miserable death here, or you gamble and use all your remaining qi to get your legs out of the stone. Trust me when I say if you do so, I'll get you to the healers quick enough to fix the qi deprivation."

Silence. Daichi's eyes searched Sugawara's face.

Sugawara leaned back to give Daichi some space, but also give himself a chance to center himself because he was nearing his limits with stupid, stubborn people for the day. Scratch Daichi being maybe being a good friend. Nekomata expected him to be friends with these two idiots?

"Choose," Sugawara snapped, finally. Did he think they were made of time when the castle was burning down around them? "Or are you one to simply accept death when something gets slightly hard?"

Daichi's next reaction baffled him. He laughed, and not even hysterically either. When he stopped there was a determined glint entered his eyes.

"No, I'm not," Daichi replied with a smile in his voice, before rapidly paling when he muttered a word ' _diafygi_ ' and blue qi started spiralling out of Daichi into the stone trapping his legs. Sugawara immediately hooked his hands underneath Daichi's arms and pulled.

Daichi slid out of the stone with an uncomfortable grimace, but his face was much too pale afterwards as the qi escaped his hold, spiralling from the rock into the air. He was the type to look better with a healthy tan, Sugawara concluded as he immediately hefted him on his shoulder, and raced down the corridor, through the door outside, and streaked past the gardens towards the crowd of people in front of the mansion. He remembered seeing a few healers there.

"Woah," he felt Daichi mumble into his shoulder. "You're fast."

"And you're heavy," Sugawara retorted, before skidding to a stop in front of a line of injured patients with a few emergency healers already at work. "Severe magic deprivation and smoke inhalation," he quickly explained to the healer, who immediately got to work after he set him down.

Azumane, who must've been some sort of psychic, appeared nearly immediately after. "Daichi, you're okay!" He blubbered, tears appearing in his eyes.

"Already in tears, Asahi?" Daichi quipped through a cough. "After all that posturing about being independent and strong just a few days back to your dad?"

"I'm just glad you're okay!" Azumane complained. "Let me have that at least! That was really scary!"

When Sugawara slipped away, he heard Daichi ask, "Who was that?" To which Azumane sniffled back a, "I heard he's the great sage's apprentice or something." Sugawara had had enough however, and he slipped his way to the Lord of the castle (who was looking at his burning castle with a sort of dignified despair) and told him that the wards around his castle had dropped, asking if it was okay to leave now. The Lord promised that Azumane's group will have sufficient protection and made a not-very-subtle hint that he was welcome to head back to the capital to fetch reinforcements and supplies.

Leaving the transport and security of Azumane to the people who had that as their actual jobs, Sugawara heaved a long sigh and started the run back home. He had to report to Nekomata as fast as possible anyway, and the King needed to hear about the attack.  


* * *

  
A week later, Sugawara was convinced. Sawamura Daichi was stalking him.

And wherever Sawamura was, Azumane wasn't far behind.

"What?" Sugawara sighed, pulling up his goggles as he sensed two footsteps approaching him from behind. The muted clink of Daichi's armour gave him doubly away as they pushed through the door and walked straight in. "I'm mixing a delicate compound for Nekomata right now."

"Being the Great Sage's apprentice must be so cool!" Daichi laughed, settling down on a stool a few steps away to watch, Asahi settling behind him as a nervous shadow, comical because of how he was taller than Daichi already by half a head. "No, finish what you're doing! I just wanted to ask if you could help me with my training again."

"Again?" Sugawara echoed, already mentally giving up because damn could Sawamura be stubborn. Dripping the liquid he had in his mortar into a small container, he pulled off his goggles and stood up, walking out of the cottage. "I'm done anyway. Also, knock the next time you're entering someone's house!" At his frown, Daichi laughed.

"Sorry, Suga! I just got too excited to see you!"

Sugawara stared at him in disbelief (Sawamura had the annoying habit of shortening people's name the moment they met them), before looking accusingly at Asahi. "Keep him in line! Isn't he your vassal?"

Asahi nervously scratched his head. "Umm, I tried to make him knock on the door first today…" Came the peep out of his delinquent looking face. Then he withered when Sugawara kept looking at him with a judgemental look on his face, hunching his broad shoulders and looking miserable. At that, Sugawara massaged the bridge of his nose.

"That face is wasted on you," he informed Asahi blandly, before leading him to a random training ground. There, he trumped Daichi repeatedly just like all their previous training sessions.

Mid-way, Daichi dragged Asahi into the fray too (since Asahi couldn't depend on Daichi protecting him all the time right?), so Sugawara also gave him a crash-course on how to get thrashed in the most non-fatal way possible.

When he was the only one left standing over a collapsed Daichi and Asahi (he may have been feeling a little smug), he decided doing a small workout before lunch was maybe not the worst thing to do.  


* * *

  
"Come on!" Daichi yelled, battered face still with a damnable grimace that he probably thought was an encouraging smile. Sugawara was tempted to take a picture and show him that wasn't the case - his grimace of pure determination was actually making Asahi behind him shrink a little away (which was still quite hilarious to watch). "One more round!"

Sugawara sighed, lazily throwing a few kunai up and down before throwing three backwards at Daichi, who blocked the first one with his sword, the second with a hasty blue flicker of a barrier, but got hit straight in the neck by the third. To hammer it home, Sugawara took the second while Daichi choked in surprise to throw a few blunted wooden shuriken straight past him into Asahi, who bore the hits with a suffering silence.

"A-as amazing as ever, Suga," Asahi complimented, having gotten into the habit of shortening his name without permission as well.

Well, it wasn't as if he minded nowadays, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Why didn't you even try to dodge?" Sugawara replied instead. "No need to compliment me every time, Asahi. Just work on your own instincts more," he replied while glancing up from his book on advanced herbology. "Daichi's getting there at least."

"It's just, y-you're the same age as us, Suga, and you can do so many things..." Asahi fiddled with the hem of his delicately embroidered autumn yukata. Asahi's tutor had told him that Asahi needed to appear at a function or whatever, so Sugawara had stuck to only pummeling Daichi that day.

"Shoot, how?" Daichi collapsed and rolled onto the floor, massaging his throat with a resigned grimace. "I'm the same age as you, and I've trained all my life since I was eight!"

Sugawara shrugged, declining to comment but hopped over to give Daichi a hand up. "Even Inuoka can't beat me," Sugawara offered as some sort of comfort. "And he's captain now, so should that make you feel better?"

"No!" Daichi insisted, large frown on his face as he kept massaging his throat even after he got up. "You're the same age as me, so I want to be on the same level as you. I should be able to."

Leading the two back to Nekomata's cottage and up to his room, Sugawara offered some bruise cream that was getting dangerously low these days. Asahi settled on his bed with an awkward shuffle of a boy who didn't know what to do with his height, while Daichi sat on a stool next to his window. Sugawara just stayed standing, patient to wait while Daichi took the time to smear cream all over the bruises he'd have for a week if not for Nekomata's mixing magic.

"I'm a little different," Sugawara pointed out. "I'm a body enhancer, I use _othis_ only. You use a mix of both types of magic, of course you're going to run out of stamina faster than me," he shrugged.

"But you have all those fake ninja skills," Daichi insisted. "I'm not going to pry why you have the assassination specialty, but you've mastered all of those skills!"

Sugawara's attention snapped towards Daichi's disarming smile, who had finished with the cream and was screwing the jar shut.

"What did you just say?" Sugawara asked, heart rabbiting. He'd been pretty successful at pretending his assassination skills were more from covert ops, ninja as they were affectionately called. Even Inuoka hadn't figured it out.

"Don't worry," Daichi insisted. "Me and Asahi figured it out after I described how you took down those attackers the first time we met!" He grinned at Sugawara's expression, before his face fell a little at Sugawara's continued suspicion. "Hey, I'll never betray a friend," Daichi said, calmer and more insisting now.

Asahi, who had busied himself into staring out the window as soon as he felt tension in the room used the pause to bridge the gap of the conversation.

"Ah, Suga! Um, the smiley-faces on your flower pots look really cute!" Asahi smiled as he pointed. "You didn't seem the type to do so!"

Sugawara nodded at Asahi with an absentminded 'thanks', before focussing back on Daichi. "When did we become friends?"

Daichi stood up to hand the cream back to Sugawara, on level with him now. "The moment you saved us," Daichi replied, solid. "And no, nothing you say will change my mind."

And there it was, the glint in his eyes that now Sugawara realised was pure, determined stubbornness.

Ugh. It was hard to deal with these types.

"Well, it's nearly time for Asahi's formal dressing for the fancy thing tonight," Sugawara answered as he ushered them out of his room, dodging any sort of response. "Come on, go away. You can bug me more tomorrow."

Ah. He shouldn't have mentioned tomorrow. Daichi's stubborn smile suddenly turned blinding again, calling back an "it's a promise!" while Sugawara duly reflected that he should not be infected dammit.  


* * *

  
Asahi smiled in commiseration over dinner a week later, having been invited by a more-than-welcoming Nekomata. Daichi, having been exhausted by training that day, had fell asleep at the dinner table, leaving Sugawara and Asahi to talk since Nekomata had abandoned them to go drinking with Inuoka's unit.

"He really looks up to you, you know," Asahi said quietly over dishes, having surprised Sugawara when a Lord's son hadn't shied from getting his hands dirty. "Daichi that is. I can't remember the last time he was so determined to befriend someone barring well... me."

Sugawara shot him a curious glance, demanding more of the story as he rinsed and dried a dish, putting it into a neat stack inside a basket that he would take to the palace kitchens later.

"I wasn't the most outgoing kid, and part of it was circumstantial as the Azumane's Lord's son, " Asahi laughed a little self-consciously. "Daichi just stumbled into my life. He was chasing a bird or something, I don't remember what he said, but it led him to falling over the wall into my private garden. He sprained an ankle," Asahi fondly remembered, rubbing soap over a particularly oily patch on a dish. "When he heard I had never met another person my age, Daichi made it his personal mission to 'fix' the situation."

"But why?" Sugawara asked, confused. He was still so confused over... friendship. Most relationships were give and take - but it seemed like his friendships always just gave without him doing anything. Michimiya named him her friend and gave him a life, Daichi had just barged in and demanded it (with Asahi following and insisting softly behind), but all he'd ever done for Michimiya was cracking a few jokes. All he'd ever done to Daichi bar their first meeting was repeatedly thrash him. Asahi was so soft-spoken they'd barely even interacted.

"For me, it was because I spoke against my father for the first time when I defended Daichi for trespassing in my garden," Asahi smiled shyly at him. "For you, you saved his life, and from what I heard, it was really um, impressive? Daichi had always aimed high, and you're just his next target."

Sugawara fell silent at that, thinking hard.

"I'll give you guys a chance," he told Asahi later, as he lugged Daichi's sleeping body back to Asahi's suite of rooms inside the castle. Asahi, surprisingly astute (and unsurprisingly sensitive), didn't ask for clarification of what he meant.

"That's all we ask," he replied with a smile.  


* * *

  
The training yards were packed full to the brim for the unofficial 'tournaments' that the guards did for fun every year, and in the under fifteens category, Daichi grinned in decisive victory over a fifteen-year palace guard.

"A good fight!" They agreed as they shook arms, hands gripping each other's elbows as they slowly drained from their adrenaline high. The crowd cheered around them at the make-shift announcer's yelled declaration of Daichi as the winner, as the fifteen-year old gave Daichi a begrudgingly impressed smirk.

"You're going to be a monster one day," he promised Daichi, who gave a wry smile back.

"No, not yet. I still have a ways to go," was Daichi's reply, as his attention shifted to the subject of a fresh wave of cheering. Following his gaze, the fifteen-year old snorted.

"Yeah, here comes the real monster."

The crowd cheered as the announcer gleefully yelled, "And here comes the undefeated! The great! The mighty APPRENTICE OF THE GREAT SAGE, SUGAWARA KOUSHI!"

"Inuoka, shut up!" Came a familiar voice, retorting. "I swear, I don't know how you persuade me to do this every year!"

"Aww, have fun, Koushi!" The announcer replied, before getting back into the job. "Well, here comes the extra match all victors of their bracket get! A fight against our undefeated champion! First will be the winner of the fifteen and under bracket, one of our newer recruits from Azumane fief, Sawamura Daichi!"

Daichi grinned, feral, and Sugawara sighed, slapping his forehead. "Again? I thought this would be the one day I wouldn't need to fight you!"

"Okay!" Inuoka shouted, "Each of you should declare a concession!"

"I won't use weapons," Sugawara replied, used to the drill, while Daichi confidently grinned.

"I will fight while protecting a non-combatant!" Daichi declared, before waving Asahi out from the crowd. Sugawara just sighed while everyone _ooooohed_ at such a difficult concession while fighting Sugawara of all people.

"Well, everyone place your bets! We'll start in a few minutes, so be prepared!"

Sugawara rolled his shoulders as he started rotating his qi, watching Daichi and Asahi's furtive movements with a tired eye. He was up mixing for a grumpy Nekomata most of the night, and he'd been forced to wake up early by Inuoka this morning. This was totally unfair. Probably end it as fast as he could?

Targeting Asahi it was then.

As soon as Inuoka whistled loudly, Sugawara kicked forward in a small whoosh of displaced air, landing behind Asahi to give him a gentle chop to the neck. That was until to his surprise, a blue repulsion ward lit up from under Asahi's hairline, pushing him a few steps away right into-

Sugawara ducked underneath a gleaming fist with wide eyes, sleepiness gone as the gauntlet whistled past mere millimeters from his hair.

"Tch," Daichi cursed, even as he was quickly bringing a knee up, where Sugawara twisted away before being backed up into Asahi with a sword swing. Asahi, losing no chance, thrust out a palm that had another repulsion ward that Daichi had drawn on beforehand, pushing Sugawara forward back towards Daichi's back-swing.

With a rush of hurried qi, Sugawara shot out an arm to intercept Daichi's sword swing, making his fingers as tough as iron as he stopped the swing by trapping the blade between his index and middle finger, before using a twist of his arm to try and disarm Daichi. However, having been used to this trick Daichi had also called upon othis and steeled his grip, forcing it forward so that it was Sugawara's arm being twisted instead of the sword flying across the arena.

That's the problem with repeat opponents, Sugawara thought with annoyance as he let the sword go and leapt sideways so that Asahi couldn't do that repulsion trick again. They got used to you, and as an assassin that was just plain stupid.

Daichi leapt sideways with him, in a burst of speed that was provided by Asahi propelling him with another repulsion seal, and Sugawara grimaced as he was forced to block another one of Daichi's powerful blows, not getting the chance to regroup when Daichi skidded back from the block to launch himself back at him again. When did Daichi's enhancement get so good, Sugawara wondered as he dodged yet again by a narrower degree than normal.

Still, Daichi may be stronger and getting faster, but Sugawara was still faster. Sugawara stopped holding back and circulated qi freely, using it to stop his momentum, hit Daichi's hand sideways so his swing would overextend and race past him to Asahi. As many repulsion wards he may have, Daichi couldn't have them inscribed everywhere. Just hit him in the gut or something.

Asahi's eyes widened at where Sugawara had disappeared in front of Daichi full swing, knowing his eyes wouldn't be fast enough to truly track Sugawara when he turned up the speed. But he knew his cues, so the moment he saw Sugawara disappear in a flicker, Asahi stepped backwards.

Sure enough, Sugawara landed in front of him... right into the trap Asahi had been standing on top of. Asahi activated the seals Daichi had stealthily drawn into the ground early this morning, and on of Sugawara's feet sank into the rock. And before he could pull it out, Asahi ran away from the seal to a safe place in the corner of the field.

"All yours, Daichi!" Asahi yelled, safely far away. Daichi ran over immediately, and pointed his sword at Sugawara's back.

"Yield!" Daichi yelled gleefully while Sugawara experimentally pulled at the foot that was sunk past the slight dirt and into harder rock. "You can't move anymore!"

"That's what you think," Sugawara retorted, twisting around to stare at Daichi. "But I'm impressed that my talks about traps and strategy stuck with you, and I'm tired. So I yield."

The sudden uproar from their audience reminded the two that they weren't in one of their private training sessions. Inuoka was especially braying about how 'THE UNDEFEATED GOT DEFEATED AT LAST, THOUGH I GOTTA ADMIT IT WAS MORE TAG-TEAMING THAN A TRUE ONE-ON-ONE AS RULES STATE YOU KNOW' and Sugawara rolled his eyes again. "Hey, Daichi," Sugawara looked back at the other boy, who was still basking in his win. One win to two hundred and seventy three losses! It was _beautiful_. "Free me from this rock already."

"On one condition!" Daichi said brightly. "You have to join me and Asahi for dinner every Friday from now on!"

Sugawara grimaced. Really?

"C'mon, Suga," Daichi laughed. "It's not that bad, being with us two!"

Asahi slowly came back to them, nodding. "Yeah, I have a few games that I brought back from home in my rooms, Suga! It'll be more fun to play with three people!"

Sugawara tugged on his foot and sighed. "Alright," he sighed, as his qi went back to his core and he felt totally drained as a result. "I'll join you for dinner tonight."

"Tonight, and every Friday after!" Daichi insisted, the stubborn glint in his eyes not appeased by Sugawara's half-hearted agreement.

"Yeah, that. Free me already."

Daichi looked entirely too smug for the entire dinner that night, so Sugawara used some sleight of hand to manipulate the card game that Asahi was trying to explain to him (not telling Asahi, of course, that he already knew the game already). So what if they only realised he was cheating after eight spectacular wins in a row? Sugawara laughed at Asahi's rare outraged face and Daichi's silent plotting one. Their outraged cries gave life to his soul.

The next Friday, Sugawara was soundly trounced at a game he actually didn't know how to play. They then proceeded to try sneak to the kitchens for snacks before they got caught taking some fancy preparatory bread for tomorrow. Sugawara's quick-thinking got them out of a potentially hairy mess, while Daichi just stood there smiling and Asahi tried not to look too suspicious and looming (he failed).

And well, at that card game... fair is fair. If the next afternoon Sugawara had thrown a few more blunted kunai than usual, who could say it was from any sort of petty grudge?

Slowly, Sugawara learnt to look forward to the daily mid-afternoon knock on his door, grumbling for Nekomata's sake whenever he opened it to see a scary-determined smiling Daichi and the soft-spoken hellos of Asahi.

Somewhere between Daichi's plans for TRAINING GREATNESS, Asahi's well-meaning bumbling and Sugawara's emergency talk-out-of-bad-situations charm, they became friends.  


* * *

  
"What's that weird black box?" Sugawara asked Nekomata one day, a package that he received from a flighty crow that didn't leave after it had delivered the package, instead hopping over to Sugawara's shoulder and preening his hair. It had actually fallen asleep while doing so, and was resting in the corner on a pillow now.

Nekomata grumbled. "Why are you so curious nowadays?"

Sugawara shrugged. "Chou infected me? Come on, tell me."

"It's a recording from an old friend," Nekomata answered. "She's a witch who can see the future. It's…" Nekomata trailed off, before rocking on his wheelchair. It was getting creaky, one of the nails a little loose, and Sugawara counted five creaks before Nekomata started the conversation again. "Koushi…"

"Yeah?" Sugawara stopped sharpening his tantō.

"How old are you this year?"

"…Fourteen. Why?"

"Six years already, huh. How time flies," Nekomata chuckled. "I'll hit one-thirty in another two years! Amazing! Have you been happy here in all these six years, Koushi?"

"I have," Sugawara answered slowly. "What's going to happen, Nekomata?" Sugawara had never involved himself into Chou's politics, but he did know that Nekomata had been looking more and more tired lately. And now this? A prophecy?

Nekomata ignored him though, rustling an aged hand through his plant-hair (clovers this season) with a satisfied smile.

"Good. I've done a good job then." Nekomata sank into his chair even more bonelessly, staring out the window into the indigo sunset. "Koushi, I've left you some things underneath the sink. Open it when the time comes. You'll know. And remember no matter where your destiny goes, we'll always be here for you. And hey, Koushi?"

"Yeah?"

"If I asked you to do something difficult for me... would you do it?"

There was no need to think about the answer.

"I'd do anything."

Nekomata silently continued rocking on the chair then, not unsmiling, but not frowning either. He just nodded, accepted it, before changing the topic to complaining about Naoi's tendency to make him go to formal banquets and parties.

Sugawara wondered what all that was about.  


* * *

  
"Where's Asahi?" Sugawara asked Daichi over a late breakfast, who also looked slightly concerned.

"He said that he needed to talk to King Naoi about something, but he didn't mention anything about it taking so long." They sat there for an extra half hour before Asahi stumbled through the door, having somehow grown even ganglier and lanky as a fourteen year old.

"It's unbefitting for a future lord to be late, Asahi," Daichi called out with a grin on his face as he teased Asahi, before his smile faltered. "What's wrong?"

Asahi shook his head. "Daichi…" He glanced around Nekomata's hut before closing the door behind him and flumped onto a chair. "Prepare a carriage for us to leave…now, as soon as possible if you can." His voice was even more timid than normal, and Sugawara and Daichi exchanged a glance.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't explain," Asahi shook his head, but his eyes found Sugawara's. "Suga, join us. Please believe me, you'll… you'll be better off with us! I promise I'll protect you. We're friends, so I can't… I can't. I'm not supposed to, I need to leave immediately but… Suga, you can join us. _Please_."

As much as Daichi was Asahi's friend as well as his guard, Daichi knew when to act out and when to listen. "I'll arrange a carriage if you say so, Asahi. I don't know what's happening, but it sounds bad, Suga." Daichi looked at Sugawara, brows furrowed. "If Asahi says that something is that dangerous, we'll always have a space for you, Suga," Daichi said, stolid. "It'll help me in protecting this dumbass in any case, so you'll never be dead weight."

Asahi was too upset to even react to Daichi's casual usage of dumbass. Something clicked in Sugawara's mind that this situation was actually serious.

So Sugawara analysed Asahi, his shaky fingers, Daichi's confused concern, and thought back to Nekomata, yesterday night.

"Wait a second," Sugawara said, before heading towards the sink. And written on top of the box, in large letters in Nekomata's handwriting was [DON'T GO WITH THEM]. Pulling the box out, he placed it on the table. "There you go. My answer. Nekomata must know best."

Asahi's face crumpled like the world was ending, staring at the box, before looking back at Sugawara. And okay, maybe Sugawara was growing extremely concerned. Sure Asahi loved being cheesy and sentimental, and got scared of a lot of things (the only worrywart of their group, really), but Asahi had never been so… crushed before. Just when he was about to say something encouraging, Asahi visibly drew himself together, bowing to Sugawara in a way they've... never done, actually.

"May we meet again, Suga," Asahi said, quietly fierce, before striding out the door.

Daichi, clearly torn and as lost as he was, shrugged.

"I'll beat up Asahi later for not telling us what's going on," Daichi promised. "Maybe he's just being dramatic?" He finished, clearly doubting that himself. "But just in case its something serious… here you go," Daichi fished a small metal coin out of his pocket and handed to Sugawara. "It's nothing big, Suga, but if you ever visit Azumane fief, that coin will lead you to me and Asahi. Just show it to someone official looking."

With that, Daichi gave him a clap on the shoulder and left. The whole thing happened in five minutes, and just felt anticlimactic and unsatisfying– Sugawara had no idea what was going on, or why, or when, since Nekomata mentioned the future and clearly the King had told Asahi some part of what was making Nekomata so concerned (but still, why Asahi?). That rest of that day he spent in paranoia, packing all sorts of weapons into the magical bag Nekomata had helped him make, stocking on water and food, and assessed his travelling cloaks and clothes before throwing them all in too. Just in case. It always paid to be prepared.

That night, Nekomata never returned for dinner. Sugawara, who couldn't stand this suspense anymore when everything just seemed so... normal, opened the box.

Inside, tucked into a pocket of space was Nekomata's staff, covered in runes that would only ever let a sage use it as a magic conduit. Sugawara pulled it out, puzzled why Nekomata would leave this for him when he was clearly not a sage, but put it in his own bag anyway.

Next to the pocket was a normal section of box, where there were three small envelopes stacked on top of each other. On top was a letter written in Nekomata's familiar scrawl.

_[Koushi, I have an urgent request for you,] was the first line of the letter. [In the three envelopes are three important things that you must give to three people. The white envelope goes to Queen Kiyo, of the Witches' forest. The grey goes to Duke Tsukishima, in Whiteriver, the Capital of the Western continent. The black goes to the High Priest of the great library in Fa._

_Head for the Whiteriver first – focus on crossing the desert to the Duke, as it'll help throw off anyone chasing you– don't worry about directions or a map, I've seen destiny guide you to the Whiteriver. The staff I gave to you because I have a hunch you'll meet a person who will need it. Further explanation on what is going on is within the grey envelope, where in the Duke's care it'll be safe for you to learn what's happening, and hopefully gain allies in the process._

_I'm sorry I couldn't give you more time to grow up. You're the only one I can trust now. Keep safe, and don't fail._

_Cheers! Nekomata]_

Sugawara read the letter, traced the small cat picture Nekomata had doodled and sighed. That letter did tell him somewhat of what he had to do, but didn't really say anything. He wasn't about to refuse Nekomata though, so he brushed his hair back and thought of Asahi's stress in needing to get out of Chou as quickly as possible. This was probably related right? He should get a move on then...

He'd barely packed the three envelopes into a small secure pocket in his bag when the door breezed open behind him, and a warm breath tickled his ear.

_"Found you."_  


* * *

  
Extras

_Daichi has always been an unfailing optimist. However, just because he's an optimist doesn't mean he's not a realist. One of the most defining and reliable traits that Daichi has (that everyone relies on him for) is his ability to look at everything with a calm eye and still say and believe stuff like 'we can do it!' It's unsurprising that he's held leadership jobs for most of his life from this sort of attitude._

_Asahi didn't only research Nishinoya and Tanaka when he was attempting to become more of a 'wild' type. He looked up Youtube videos with beauty gurus and style makeover tutorials. He bought four types of hair combs on suggestion, and posed in front of his mother's mirror for four days straight (his own was too small, and he'd never previously used it until his makeover attempt because even he didn't like his own face - it was scary). He thought of spikes and hair gel, ponytails and hair cuts. He thought of making his eyebrows sharper, or even wearing some cool guyliner. The thing is, in the end he chose a more natural look after he heard that most of those hair products would make him bald one day, and even Kiyoko (when asked for advice) stated the way he was pulling his hair would make his hairline recede.  
His. Worst. Nightmare._

_When Suga watches his high-school group of friends, sometimes he gets overly sentimental about how amazing it is that he met such a great (dorky) bunch of people early in life. He then covers this up by punching Daichi's shoulder and wise-cracking. Daichi bears the punches in long-suffering stoicness._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would have had this up earlier, but then exams happened. Ah life.  
> Thank you for the comment and the kudos. They're really nice, and made my day a little brighter. ^^


	4. The Trust of Sugawara Koushi

  


#### The Trust of Sugawara Koushi

  


_"Found you."_

The voice was feminine, slightly mocking and amused. Not that Sugawara wasn't prepared though, as he'd already swung an elbow backwards to where the throat of the voice would be, whipping his head sideways in a tight coil. Instead of the slight elastic give of a crushed trachea though, his elbow was caught by an open hand.

"Still always opening with a backwards spin when approached from behind?" A cheerful voice chirped in his ear.

Sugawara had always been good with reading people, and the voice held no blood-lust at all. Not even a smidgen of ill-intent, which was probably why the intruder had come so close to him without him noticing. But… with an experimental tug on his elbow, the hand holding it clenched their fingers into the hollow of his joint as a warning, so Sugawara cast a curious glance over his shoulder, an Inuoka smile plastered on his face.

"Who are you?" Sugawara huffed a disarming laugh and added, "And how did you get in here, of all places?"

"Can't say," the voice replied, finally letting go of his elbow so that he could turn around and see the intruder. A woman dressed in black, average height, moderately tall. The woman didn't pull down her mask as she talked, and the room had gotten too dark to really see by the lone lamp Sugawara had lit. "Just someone in the destiny your Sage mentioned, if you want a little more detail. I'm only here to give you a warning, and collect something."

Sugawara paused for a long moment as his eyes sharpened and the angles cleared as his qi forcefully widened his pupils. Analysing that mask – the round brown eyes with the short lashes crinkled into a warm, wistful smile – before he swallowed and straightened up. His fingers slightly shook as he traced the hems of his bag absently, before replying with another nonchalant huff of a laugh, more genuine this time.

"What do you need?"

"You have a bird resting here right? I need to collect it."

"The crow that brought Nekomata the message a few days back?" Sugawara asked in surprise, pausing his gaze on the flowerpots on his window, with the smileys drawn on them. Her eyes rested like a weight on the side of his head. "It's resting downstairs. What else do you need? Food is in the kitchen. Water?"

"Nothing else, just a warning that you need to get out of the city soon. Preferably in the next ten minutes," she replied, voice smooth and familiar. Sugawara felt her gaze resting along his shoulders, before shifting away. "Don't notify anyone, just leave, or you'll get caught. Those packages that the Sage gave you needs to be delivered as quickly as possible."

The woman turned to leave then, before pausing mid-step.

"…Are those faces drawn on your flower pots?" She asked softly.

He was still staring at them, his small line of small pot-plants with different expressions drawn carefully with markers. He'd shared a little of why he did so to Daichi and Asahi, and they'd both drawn wobbly faces on another two that rested on the ends. Daichi had bowed his head to them in thanks, saying _"Without your teacher, you wouldn't have escaped and we wouldn't have met you, right?"_

Sugawara swallowed. "Yeah. It's so that I don't forget a dear friend of mine."

There was a thoughtful pause then, before there was a warm chuckle behind him, the sort of careful laughter that Sugawara had grown out of years ago. Quick footsteps, and a fleeting pat on his head.

"Still a stupid nugget, I see," the woman called over her shoulder, before slipping downstairs in a brush of wind. The next second, Sugawara felt no-one again, the presence out the door and towards the Palace. Too late for things like, _'Have you met Nekomata? He can wipe the suicide curses'_ and _'Don't go, we can free you'_ or _'I have so many things to show you.'_

 _Can't say_ , she said. With that, Sugawara had known nothing he said would let him save her. She still had something to do, and Michimiya didn't rise in ranks just because she was prettier or smarter than the rest.

Sugawara let the palace draw his gaze, pensive.

Nekomata leaving. Asahi's haunted look, Daichi's puzzled acceptance, and Michimiya…

What was going on? He looked at the note that Nekomata had left for him, before forcefully uncurling his fingers from the tight clench he had on his bag.

Ten minutes, she said? To get out of the Chou's capital, and head towards his first location?

Ruffling his hair through his fingers, Sugawara mocked himself a little. As the sage's apprentice, he could've stuck his head into any of talks that Asahi had attended these past few weeks, but he didn't. He'd told Nekomata that he didn't want to deal much with politics, and the old man had respected that decision like any of the others Sugawara had chosen. But hating politics isn't enough of an excuse to not support a friend in need.

Not that, of course, Asahi had asked him or Daichi for help.

The thought stung a little.

Nothing to do about that now though, so Sugawara sniffed all the feelings in and swung his packed spatial bag onto his back, gave the room one last check for any potentially helpful travelling supplies before jumping out the window. It was only a few minutes later when Sugawara was swinging himself over the palace walls (he waved to one of the palace guards on watch, who gave him a nod) across a street onto some rich dude's house in the upper city when his heart seemed to _squeeze_. The world tunnelled, and he heard it, something large, primal, a breath in. It was the sound of the universe shifting, the gears of a particularly difficult ritual starting to grind forward. He felt the qi of the world changing through his skin, funnelling through space to stream into the Palace. Magic, fire-tinted, rushing into the palace so thick it was visible in the air in a whirlpool of power and in the moments where he couldn't breathe— 

_Click._

A large flock of birds screamed into the air, a cacophony of panic as they spiralled into the sky. Dogs barked urgently in their yards, and when Sugawara found it in himself to take a sharp breath in, sweating as if he'd run a marathon, his mind clamoured that sound he heard somewhere, in the back of his mind. An echo. A creak, as something opened.

" _Where are you?"_ The universe whispered.

( _"I miss you,"_ the universe screamed.)

Sugawara's heart suddenly jerked, jack-rabbiting in his chest as his head instinctively turned to chase the voice. Downwards, chained. In the corner of his eye, a white light bloomed from the depths of the castle.

Ten minutes. 

The whole world burst into blue heat that faded into red and orange, blasting him into a wall, drying his mouth and cracking his skin into red and white flakes. The roof he had been standing in cracked into black, then white ash. The neighbourhood woke with choked screams and gasps before the whole area turned still. The dogs that barked suddenly quieted and Sugawara watched through blurred eyes of birds dropping from the sky to scatter into dust as they hit the ground. Nekomata's cloak crumbled as Sugawara struggled to focus past the heat, spreading his awareness with the start of a despairing hope, thinking of King Naoi, the kitchen maids, the palace guards, their smiles and their teases— silence. All the heartbeats in the palace's immediate radius had suffocated to death except...

Sugawara's mouth turned into a grim line, as he sunk his foot into ash. In a creak of dying timber, the husk of a black house collapsed from the force of his kick as he ran towards the edge of the city. Even as he ran, he sensed tens of dark presences streaking out of the Palace turning in pursuit.

Bells started to toll, deep peals that woke the middle city. Lights started to flicker on in windows of intact houses, as Sugawara pushed himself through the winding back-streets.

"Chase him!" Five shadows dropped down from the roofs with him to land around the corner, with another two reinforcements from that jumped from a nearby guard tower joining him. In the background, a woman screamed. Her house had caught on fire from the embers that flew from the castle, and she was trapped as the flaming roof started to fall down. Sugawara's feet twitched to help, but a snap and a gurgle told him it was too late.

Sugawara gritted his teeth, feeling the strain of his muscles, burning through his qi. Even if his qi underneath Nekomata's direction of constant flow didn't run out, it didn't mean that his muscles didn't stop tearing as he forced them to their limits. Qi can only fill so many of those tears. Flitting through the tight alleyways was hell on the knees. Sugawara footwork was still in its intermediate stages, unlike true masters that could run faster than a dragon at maximum speed for days on end. He could hold it for five hours at most when he wasn't dashing around alleyways.

"Around the corner! Call reinforcements!" A man yelled. Sugawara sensed a sharp killing intent to his far left, before he took a breath to duck, a flash of a thrown dagger inches away from nailing his neck.

"We can't let the sage's apprentice escape!" Another muffled voice shouted, far too close for his liking.

It had taken more time than he expected to escape. Nearly an hour had passed when he passed into the lower city, going well until the third tier of gates when, in his attempt to save a baker, he'd triggered a trap— (but Akio gave all the orphans fresh cream buns on Sunday, boasted about his grand-daughter to Sugawara whenever he sneaked Asahi down into the city, and he'd been screaming, bowed over a small girl underneath rubble _how could he ignore him how_ ) Four five-man teams leapt up into the air around him in ambush when he'd rushed to them, attacking him when he was in the middle of pulling out Akio and his grand-daughter as if they'd been waiting for him. He clenched his teeth, throwing a few poisoned daggers at the ones closest to him as he dashed away from the two, and as expected they followed him.

How had they known? His mind flashed to Michimiya, but shook the thought away. She'd never betray him.

"The sage's apprentice is close to King Naoi, the Sage, and the Azumane heir," someone roared at his subordinates, above the crackle of flames. Someone's windows cracked and exploded, sending heat and shards of sharp red glass onto the streets. "He's the only one left! If any of you let him escape before we can tear information out of him, I'll report all of you to get beheaded!"

Sugawara skidded through alleyways, heart hurting when he saw all the familiar stalls all crackling down in flame. Masami, and her apple treats, Iori and his steamed dumplings, Yoshimi's delicate origami, all gone. His ankles ached when he took another sharp turn to the left, ducking low. Nearly there. He had to continue surviving.

A hail of needles rained from the rooftop ahead of him, and Sugawara cursed, going too fast to stop. Swinging his pack up, the needles sunk into his bag instead, arms shaking from the force.

Sugawara's mouth twisted into a bitter smile. He'd thought he would've been important enough that the enemy would have wanted to capture him alive, but apparently, he'd overestimated his importance. There were ways to get information from a corpse, after all.

Slinging his bag back, he let his feet skid him through a low hollowed hole in a wall, his feet landing on a wall for him to jump back up, eyes narrowing when he found what he'd been aiming for. The alleyway lead straight to a grate where rainwater usually slid through to a channel that lead to a river. Long ago, a water mage had spelled this grate as an emergency escape for any official Chou citizen during attack, while any foreigner would be blocked by a strong barrier.

So Sugawara dived straight into the metal bars without a thought and the grate rippled and slid around him, only to flash white light and block the few daggers that had tried to follow him. With a quick hand, Sugawara swiped all the daggers fallen near the grate and retreated back quickly, eyes narrowed as his breaths were finally let out hard, now that he was safe.

"It's a barrier!" Sugawara heard shouts and curses behind him as he quickly found his feet, and minding the low ceiling, scuttled down through rainwater pipe in a low crouch.

"We can't fail! This must either lead to the rainwater or sewage system. Go!"

He wouldn't be safe for long.

The gutter only lead to one exit – to the edge of one of the subsidiaries of the great rivers of the east, the Naka river.

Down, dark, and slippery, Sugawara's boosted eyes leant all the dark shadows shape as he followed the small etched markings on the walls that indicated where the escape was. When his eyes caught a glimmer of light near the exit, he let the qi from his eyes ebb to adjust, slowing down in caution. Barriers can be broken, with enough time. He needed to be careful.

Just when he was about to turn the corner, a sudden hand on his arm made him stiffen and jerk his elbow up to hit his assailant in the face. The shadow ducked, and Sugawara was about to surge into an upper cut when the figure put his hands up in surrender.

"Stop!"

Sugawara paused at the harsh whisper, recognising the voice.

"Inuoka?" Sugawara's eyes found the guard's face, finding the cheerful smile dimmed and one of his strong eyebrows half singed away. A bruise bloomed all the way from his neck up to his left ear, even as fingers ruefully rubbed a new one on his chin. Sugawara winced in apology. "Sorry for the hit," he offered, "but why are you here?" Why was the captain of the guards alone in one of the evacuation routes?

"They're waiting for you out there," Inuoka whispered, not taking the elbow to the chin to heart as he nodded towards the exit. "They knew about this exit. Somehow. They're all waiting outside, trying to break through. No-one can break the barriers yet, but they're getting closer."

"What?" Sugawara repeated, mind whirling as he tried to slot information in place. The enemy was outside the exit, the captain of the guards was alone in a civilian evacuation tunnel... Inuoka's lips somehow quivered into a smile, and Sugawara's heart fell.

"I was in one of the groups escorting civilians in an emergency evacuation." And now that Sugawara had calmed down, he noticed Inuoka's whole body trembling. Slowly, the smell of blood also seeped through the air, from the exit behind him. Sugawara didn't dare to look. "I only escaped because I was bringing up the rear."

Self-loathing tinged the whole of Inuoka's defeated appearance.

"What do we do now?" Sugawara asked, unwilling to leave Inuoka like this.

"There's another exit, one that I know only because Nekomata showed me when I got lost here when I was a kid." He heaved himself onto shaky feet, a horrible smile still on his face. He faced Sugawara. "I was waiting here for any other survivors or evacuation groups, but you were the only one that came. You wouldn't abandon Chou like this if you didn't have something important to do, right?" The small smile wavered, as Inuoka tried to believe.

Sugawara nodded immediately. "Of course, Inuoka. They're chasing me, for some reason. Maybe if I escape, I can draw some of them away from Chou."

Another distant explosion rocked the small channel they crouched in, dust falling onto their hair.

"Then you have to leave." Inuoka closed his eyes, before looking back down the way Sugawara had come. "Let's go."

Inuoka moved slower than Sugawara, being in heavy armour and always having less agility as a power type warrior, but when he stumbled he hauled himself up with a frown of determination, and when he fell, he waved off Sugawara's hand with an angry grimace at himself.

Soon, they arrived at a small wall. A dead end.

"Here," Inuoka whispered, tracing a small character onto the stone. It lit up into a dim yellow before the wall shimmered, and faded. "Go through."

"Come with me," Sugawara said, even as he knew the answer. Inuoka shook his head in refusal. "Your mother?" Sugawara guessed.

"In the group I was escorting," Inuoka responded, voice bleak.

The blood from the exit.

"What?" Sugawara responded, numb. Inuoka's mother had been one of the first people in Chou to truly try to make him feel accepted – the most insistent one on making him smile. He was around their family so much that she'd basically adopted him as her son, always chiding Inuoka to take care of him, joking that if Nekomata ever mistreated him, that he could always officially become her second son. She'd always been proud of the fact that her soup was better than the palace kitchens, enough so that Sugawara had found an excuse at least once per week to crash at her place.

"We were told of some suspicious movements in the guard a week before, so evacuation happened quicker than usual. But she was in one of the later groups because she thought of you," Inuoka replied, brown eyes closed. "She was worried. They attacked the palace first, we all saw where the first explosion was lit. The people chasing you weren't quiet about the fact you escaped and they were trying to capture you."

"Inuoka, I…" Sugawara tried, before his throat strangled him. He didn't know what to say.

"Go," Inuoka replied, determined. A gauntleted hand pushed him forward. "I have to go back, but you have something to do. I'll rest a little more easily when I know you're safe. At least I'm not going to lose you."

Sugawara gripped his arm in a tight squeeze, not knowing how else to convey what he was feeling, words fluttering in his throat.

"Go!"

Sugawara let himself be pushed, and the last thing he saw was Inuoka drawing another character into the air before the wall was back in solid stone. The sound of Inuoka's footsteps on the other side left after a few seconds, and with a heart full of regret, Sugawara did the same.

When Sugawara struggled through an old trapdoor in an abandoned inn outside the city, he immediately hid his presence as well as he could, pulled his hood up and ran towards the west roads. When he found the roads were filled with panicking people, he ran into the forest instead. Behind him, the echoes of the great bells, the general roar of fire and fighting, and the screen of smoke all faded as he pushed his speed to the limit. Faster. _Faster._

A few hours later, when he was slogging through a river to lose any scent trails, when Chou City was only a distant red speck in the night, he felt like he heard the mighty roar of the _voice_. It was a pressure that made the hairs of his arms stand on end, distant but overpowering. Sugawara turned his head back just in time to see a great shadow rising over the smoke, a large arm rising up, larger, hundred times, a thousand times larger than the small dot of a city wreathed in golden flames— then the hand clenched into fist, as the great shadow came down, slowly, in Sugawara's eyes standing so far away, with no way of helping. The fist touched the earth — and the small, golden city of Chou in the distance disappeared.

  


* * *

  


"Need to travel over the desert to the West, my boy?" A cheerful merchant called him over, waving from a relatively large store. "I have all your desert needs right here, along with a few camels!" The man's jowls jiggled as he over-enthusiastically pointed at a few bored looking camels, whose long lashes blinked melancholically over the sand dunes they'd crossed on the whims of humans hundreds of times before. "If you buy over ten gold coins of my wares, perfectly practical for such a long, hard, journey, I usually lend a camel half price! Since you're a little younger, I'll give you the special deal of five gold, how about that?"

Carefully eyeing the camel being offered for hire, Sugawara opted out. At this point, the camel was way too slow for his needs. It would only paint a large convenient target for his pursuers.

"Give me ten of those water skins please," Sugawara asked politely, and the merchant drooped in disappointment when his bid didn't work.

"Alright, five silver coins for ten water skins."

The simple purchase didn't take long, and Sugawara soon tucked ten full skins into his bag, glad all the water didn't make his bag any heavier.

"…By the way, any news about Chou?"

The question just slipped out without much permission, and Sugawara immediately scolded himself in the head. It would've been better if he hadn't mentioned Chou. People had ways to track subjects, especially if he was thinking about that the attack came from Wu. There was no other explanation as to why Michimiya would have been there, otherwise.

The merchant had already turned away at that point, disinterested after the purchase had finished, but he twisted one jiggling chin over his shoulder at Sugawara's question as his whole face melted into one flabby soft expression of sympathy.

"Ah, are you a refugee?"

Was that what they were calling them, nowadays? Sugawara wondered. Refugees?

"Yeah," Sugawara answered shortly.

"You're awfully fast to have crossed from Chou to Wakan's desert outpost in a week," the merchant mused. "Well, tell your parents that after the attack on the Chou City, it seems like Wu's influence is spreading. From what I've heard from the merchant's grapevine… Everywhere from the Palace to the Nishi-fief had joined the information blackout. No-one knows anything." The merchant paused, before giving a huff. "It's quite frustrating really."

Sugawara's brows creased.

The Azumane fief was only two fiefs northwest of Nishi.

Asahi's sombre near panicked plead for Sugawara to come with them echoed in his mind. Even his fief wasn't safe now.

Sugawara turned and smiled at the merchant, before asking whether he had any maps with him. Although it cost another five silvers, it couldn't be helped.

He'd planned to just cross the desert the fastest way to the city Nekomata had indicated on his map. Duke Tsukishima was a Duke of one of the larger frontier Capitals of the West, White River City. Although the West and the East had traditionally held many different values, Nekomata had assured him that the continent mostly spoke the same language.

Alright.

Sugawara carefully scanned his surroundings, before adjusting his hood and striding forward. One water skin could last him a three days, especially if he was running. Ten skins equalled approximately thirty days. The bag had been made by Nekomata to never weigh more than a certain amount, and its spatial pocket was big enough to hold all his camping supplies, the water, enough food, as well as weapons and other equipment. The great desert usually required at least four weeks by camel, especially since the normal traveller tagged along the great merchant routes.

Sugawara estimated that he could probably run straight through the desert in a two and a half weeks, if he only took rests during the day and ran throughout the cold night to help regulate temperature.

He narrowed his eyes as he wandered nonchalantly through the crowd and out the outpost until there was no one left around him. Then he promptly circulated his qi, and flew forward.

  


* * *

  


"A spy?"

When he spotted the suspiciously non-shimmering patch in his vision of the horizon as he camped the sunlight out (what amateurs, they did know what heat haze should look like right?), Sugawara waited until night-time before he kicked off cautiously, looking at the map and speeding towards his destination. However, he had underestimated the number of pursuers.

In the clear night of the desert, Sugawara didn't notice the line of bombs that they had circled around his camp. Sugawara cursed when the explosion hit, only having the power to shift into a roll and curl up in his cloak to shield himself. It was simple enough to finish the roll and throw one of his more poisonous bombs backwards, and target the three who escaped breathing it in with daggers to the throat. One down.

He started to engage the one who looked slower in combat, a furious spar that didn't touch on the fluid elegance of any of the martial forms that Sugawara had learnt from Daichi. The form was something rawer, utilised for maximum effectiveness instead of beauty and enjoyment, the wildness reminiscent of times before Chou.

When he was finishing off the enemy by crushing his stomach with his foot, the other one stopped attacking from afar and ran away instead. Underneath the night, Sugawara gave chase while whipping out some smaller shuriken.

In the end, he couldn't catch him, only giving the runaway superficial wounds. Sugawara tightened his lips, heightening his vigilance. Although the poison he'd hit the runaway with should slow them down... Sugawara rolled back his trousers and applied medicine to his burnt leg. He wasn't entirely unscathed either.

He had to hurry.

  


* * *

  


He took two minutes to brush himself off, another to breathe down the adrenaline, and half a second to stare at the stars and the moon and his map and swear.

"Don't do this to me," Sugawara muttered, frantically comparing the constellations and his footprints and the map. "I can't be lost, right?"

Well, when the next morning came, even the sun didn't help orientating him to continue towards White River's Desert Outpost. In fact, he didn't even know the way back to Wakan.

Sugawara stifled a sigh that was building up, before imagining what his very upright, optimistic friends would do (i.e. not Asahi). Inuoka would use exercise as an excuse to keep moving, probably. Daichi would give a weirdly inspiring speech, most likely about 'don't give up, Suga!' and 'perseverance and hard work is the key to success!' What were they doing now?

"Come on," Sugawara told his legs. He wiggled his toes. His shoes gave a twitch, leaking some sand into his pants. "Yup, we've got to go now."

He heaved his bag up and continued onwards.

The desert was a silent place – unlike the waves and the roar of the ocean that he'd spent his first few years of his life hearing when he slept. It wasn't the quiet of the forests where he mostly camped out when he got missions, listening to small bugs and birds and the brush of leaves within a canopy. It wasn't even the quiet of a city in the late evenings, where everyone had gone to bed and the only things were the echoes from the inside of houses, the creak of a house accustoming itself to summer and the midnight shuffle of someone getting a cup of water.

No, the desert was a vast shimmering place where, when there was no wind, was a place of baking heat and the muted feel of sweat sliding down his skin. The only sound was the crunch of sand beneath his feet, his breath slow and still as he carefully paced himself quickly, but not stamina draining. However, now it was nighttime, and at night, as he continued to walk, the sky stretched above him in a glittering sweep of distant space, stars prominent in a way he'd never appreciated and the air bitterly cold.

If he got cold, he just moved a little faster to stay warm.

Sometimes, he thinks he may hear the voices people, or a camel, but when he checks he's alone. Maybe if he had travelled with a caravan like most sane (normal) people, he wouldn't have noticed all this silence as much.

Maybe he should've hired a camel, only to talk to. But then, he would have to carry it over the distance since camels were too slow for his needs, and camels didn't really like getting carried, generally speaking.

Sugawara sighed. There was just no winning, was there?

When he crested another dune, he looked back and saw no-one. He looked forward, and saw a near flat horizon, stretching further and further into a gold haze. Dawn had come.

Slowly, a breeze blew, just enough displacement to ruffle a few strands of his hair, and shifting the golden dunes slowly, the edges eroding away only to shift to the edges of another dune and Sugawara continued on.

When he was on his last half-skin of water, delayed by more than three weeks that he'd expected, Sugawara saw the first difference in the rolling dunes – a shadow in the distance that crested into a large shadow. The start of a mountain range.

Sugawara changed his direction slightly and trudged towards it, having used all his qi to just push his body normally now. Some of his muscles were damaged to the point he moved them more with qi than with his own strength, and he knew he direly needed to rest his body. But as much as he'd delayed his pursuers by injuries, it didn't mean by retreating and sending in someone fresh, they couldn't catch up to him. Wu trained the best agents – legendary for their ability to run for a week straight with only water, track even through slogging rain, and kill targets even when they were hidden in the deepest, most protected prisons or castles. He'd know, after all.

So he didn't stop, channelling more qi into muscles long overused and thinned. Slowly, he crested the mountains, tentatively squeezing his some of his remaining qi into his eyes and scanning for any path over the mountain without outright making a path for himself.

…There. A small outpost, nearly invisible in the mountain's shadow.

Sugawara swallowed another sigh, but allowed his heart to be bolstered when the small cluster of tiny huts grew closer.

And, in the middle of the small, dilapidated street, was a small slip of a boy that stood firm in the middle of the only road, staring straight at him.

Waiting.

When Sugawara first met the boy's eyes, forcing a cheerful smile onto his face, he paused.

Somehow, the boy felt familiar. The dark blue of his eyes, large, intent on a pale face. Thin lips that pursed together, hands that tightened their grip on an old shirt. He was hunched, defensive, but open and relieved at seeing him. A strange mixture. Something in him looked at the boy and didn't like how sharp his cheekbones cut his face, the smallness of his hands.

Even when his mind started filing away all the suspicious signs of familiarity (impossible, he'd never crossed the desert, or met anyone like this boy from Western envoys. An agent?), he felt… happy. For the first time since Chou, he felt the stirrings of some peace as he talked to this boy.

Kageyama Tobio.

The name rolled around his mind like a warm burst of amused exasperation, making Sugawara pause on sheer instinct. But he ignored that for now, stealthily drawing a small barrier on the hut that Kageyama Tobio led him to, before collapsing on the mat and resting. 

(If, that night, he said he wasn't surprised when small fingers touched his sleeve, he'd be lying. The fact that Kageyama's heart rate calmed at the touch after his nightmare doubly so. In the morning, Sugawara spent a few minutes staring at the boy, wondering.

Who did he remind Kageyama of?)

  


* * *

  


That night in the small desert hut, he dreamed of a festival back in Chou, the year after he met Daichi. He'd always avoided the Children's Festival – there was always work to do when the city was busy with laughter and crowds. However, that year Inuoka's mother was horrified to find out he knew none of the fairy tales that the floats of Chou's Children's Festival were based on, and sent Sugawara out with a firm order to 'find someone to talk to right now!'

When Sugawara expressed more interest in finishing his antidote research for Nekomata, Inuoka's mother sighed, before bribing him with an extra free bowl of mapo tofu from the street stall she was planning to make for the festival.

So Sugawara was tasked to find his friends and ask them to teach these fairy tales to him. However, when he found Inuoka, he was too busy with arranging the security for the festival. All the yelling and the bustling inside the Palace Guardhouse was a little intimidating, so instead of badgering them for stories like a five year old, he wandered inside bearing strong cups of tea instead. He may have been greeted with tears of joy and cheers, and a few cries of 'my saviour!'.

Being their caffeine god was a nice feeling.

Anyway, he left soon trying to find Asahi, who was in his daily etiquette lesson, learning another twenty-three ways of tea etiquette. In the few seconds that Sugawara peered his head through, Asahi was only on his fourteenth type of bow. And since the palace tutor was a scary, scary person when provoked (he intimidated even Nekomata), Sugawara gave up right away and tracked down Daichi instead.

Daichi, who always had a break whenever Asahi was doing his palace training and lessons, was slouched on a bridge, swinging his legs as he sat on one of the endlessly elegant bridges of the palace garden with a small fishing rod in hand.

"Daichi!" Sugawara waved, and his friend visibly perked up when he turned. The bored face quickly wiped into a full blown grin.

"Suga!" Daichi called as he reeled his line in carefully, dropping the pole with a loud clack on the smooth wooden boards of the bridge (Sugawara winced when it seemed to chip some of the dark lacquer). "I couldn't find you earlier at your cottage, so I decided to try this fishing spot everyone was raving about!"

Then he promptly gave the pond a stink-eye.

"You don't look very happy though," Sugawara pointed out as he walked over, hands in his pockets as his smile grew a tinge wry and teasing.

"Yeah," Daichi looked at the water with a small slump. "I don't know why, but all those fish that apparently bite like crazy don't like me."

Sugawara laughed, before picking up Daichi's fishing rod and settled next to a red post. The wood was warm from the sun, and Sugawara flicked the rod out, the lure dropping into the water with a soft plop.

Before Daichi had even properly sat down, Sugawara felt a tug on his line. After reeling in for a few seconds, he flicked a fish up into his hand. Daichi's only reaction was only a startled twitch before a familiar a sharp grin followed. "Awesome as always, Suga!"

And there was that gleam that had made Sugawara admire him in the first place, as Daichi leaned forward, his determined smile never fading as he insisted, just like always…

"Teach me."

Daichi's blazing determination in life was probably what made him both likeably popular and lack close friends, Sugawara reflected as he handed the pole back to Daichi and started giving him pointers. It could be quite intimidating.

Daichi had a fish in five tries, and Sugawara clapped him on the back in congratulations before getting to the point. Inuoka's ma had the best mapo tofu, and he wasn't going to miss out.

"Hey, Daichi, what's your favourite fairy tale of the Children's Festival?"

"Oh man, you're asking me?" Daichi asked back, scratching the back of his neck. "No-one really likes the ones I like…"

"Go on," Sugawara urged, swinging his legs. "I won't judge."

"Alright. I like the one about the boat. Or maybe the one about the girl and the bowl?" Daichi put his hand on his chin, wondering. At Sugawara's puzzled look, Daichi didn't ask (he's shared a little of his childhood to his sympathy) and just told him the stories.

One a beautiful peasant girl whose dying mother told her to put a black bowl on her head to hide her beauty, and to take it off when the time was right. Soon after, the mother died, leaving the girl alone to fend for her fortune, and after a long struggle, she found employment at a rich Lord's house. Working there with the bowl on her head, the Lord's son fancied her, courted and proposed to her to everyone's disapproval, for she had a bowl on her head and came from poverty. Alas, they married, the Lord's son not caring of her appearance or past, and the moment they married the bowl burst into an unfathomable amount of riches to everyone's delight but the son, who did not care for anything but finally seeing his beloved.

The second story featured a man whose son found a horse. A horse, being extremely valuable to any poor villager, made the whole household celebrate. During this celebration, the son was showing off the horse before something startled the horse, and the son fell and broke his leg. The villager then cursed the horse, as his only son now couldn't help him with harvesting. The next morning, a soldier carrying an imperial decree ordered all able bodied men to conscript for a brewing war with the neighbouring country. The villager, realising his son was safe, reversed all his curses and thanked his ancestors again with all his might.

After hearing the two, Sugawara blinked in surprise before deadpanning, "Yeah, I haven't really heard them before." Daichi laughed, a boisterous one that echoed over the elegant lily ponds a little too wildly.

"Right?" He huffed through a chuckle. "The story of Tarou, or the Flight of the Moon Princess, or the Bamboo Child are all very popular. Much more popular than the one about the Girl and the Bowl, and the Fortune Horse."

"But why do you like them?"

"They have different morals of course," Daichi shrugged, "but one talks about the worth within, and the other deals with perspective. I think it's cool."

Sugawara hummed as he watched a stray koi, much fatter than a fish should generally be, before breaking Daichi's concentration with a few well-placed elbow nudges.

"You mentioned the other stories. Teach me," he (maybe not as playfully as he intended) demanded.

"So pushy, Suga," Daichi waggled his eyebrows at his friend before shrugging. "Sure. I'll start with the Flight of the Moon Princess. A lot of girls like that one. Well, a long time ago in the Celestial realm…"

Daichi talked until he ran out of bait, until they arrived at Asahi's rooms in the palace to wait for their friend to finish his dressing preparations for the festival's more formal palace echelon feast, bumping shoulders along the way. When Daichi politely stopped in front of the door, and Sugawara (who didn't need to care, with his status) just flung it open anyway, Asahi's blinding smile at being rescued from the maids and tailors and butlers made him burst out laughing.

That night, when Daichi was busy guarding Asahi during all the palace politics, Inuoka somehow found the time to drag him out of Nekomata's cottage and plonked him next to his mother, sitting on his other side just in time to see the late night fireworks show.

The dream continued with their smiles and laughter, and ended with Inuoka's desperate smile as he refused to escape with him. And Sugawara woke, eyes burning, thinking _I need to be quicker_.  


* * *

  


The next morning, Kageyama showed he was more than a strange [suspicious] child – he showed him a witch's tablet. It was impossible. The witches lived on the fringes of the Great Void, vastly east of here, east of even _Chou_ , bordering the wastelands of that had once been Jin before it was wasted by the Demon Lord. How could a tablet so well made come to a nobody town? A town that, Sugawara noted, wasn't even recorded in the map he'd bought?

Barring that, something like a recording was something most rural villagers couldn't even comprehend. With even just a smidgen of suspicion Sugawara should have just decided to leave, for his friend's sake, for Nekomata's sake. The child was slowing him down.

But.

Even when faced with a veneer of friendliness, Kageyama stumbled over his words in, Sugawara sensed, in an sincerely awkward way to both make him at ease and befriend him. The sincerity (a great, looming expression of intense ferocity at the most mundane things) in which he tried his best in whatever he went about to do was more than a little funny. It was obvious from his shape and muscles he'd never had any combat training at all. The utter ignorance about magic and how to use it was genuine; not a surprise when regarding the small, poverty-stricken villages around the area. He was just a small, awkward, well-meaning kid. With all of that, Kageyama was like any other normal child.

But.

Kageyama spoke like no child he'd ever known.

He knew things about the usages of electricity used greatly in the great metropolises of the south, was prone to using formal phrases and language that would have seemed perfectly fine in an educated middle-class family in Chou. When they talked, Kageyama mentioned many things beyond the scope of such a poverty-stricken mountain range, so far away from any civilisation, should know.

But.

Kageyama couldn't read. Kageyama couldn't write the common language. Kageyama didn't even know elementary, day to day things like the lowest, easiest spell _fos_ that all children in Chou learn with gleeful joy when they're twelve, magically inclined or not.

He also liked staring at Sugawara in the most blatant of ways. Kind of awe-struck. Half disbelieving. One hundred percent earnest. If he was a spy wanting to blend in, Sugawara watched silently, drawing the hood of his cloak down as a traveller neared them on the small road Kageyama was leading him, he was very, very bad at it. And something in Sugawara twinged when he ever thought of putting a foot down and leave in a burst of speed. Nekomata had always told him to trust his instincts. What was it about this boy?

"Sugawara," Kageyama started, fidgeting and awkward, "are you, um, tired yet?"

A quick glance showed that Kageyama's feet had blisters where the sandals had rubbed his feet too much, and his legs had the slight trembling of over-used muscles. On the other hand, Sugawara hadn't even drawn on any qi for energy yet. He hadn't even broken sweat.

"Of course I am," Sugawara smiled. "Let's take a break! I have some food that can be heated up for lunch. _Fos,_ " Sugawara muttered, and a small stream of sparks flew towards the kindling. As usual, Kageyama gravitated towards him, watching with wide eyes. And as usual, the sparks changed course, drifting right when Kageyama watched from the left. The little crackles of fire were drifting right… even against the slight breeze.

He glanced at Kageyama, who tilted his head enquiringly in reply.

"What?" Kageyama asked, slightly taciturn in a way that Sugawara was quickly realising was just his inherent character.

"Ah, nothing," Sugawara grinned. "Just deciding what to eat."

"What food do you have?" Kageyama's eyes gleamed.

"I have some sausage links, some cheese, and some pickled plums? Also, rice…"

That night, Sugawara built his tent and was about to invite Kageyama in when he saw the boy had already laid out his pallet on the ground and was lying near the campfire, looking as lost as usual he scanned the sky and its stars. So Sugawara zipped up his tent instead and waited for the kid to sleep. To start his true investigation. 

Sugawara had always been able to see magic, but Nekomata had taught him how to see colours and blessings within them. Usually elemental blessings had one colour in respect to element, while Divine Blessings shone various colours that represented their deities, richer and more powerful. Nekomata had let him compare once, the blinding verdant green that was Nekomata's divine sage-y powers and something more… normal. That evening, Nekomata pointed at Inuoka at the start of a night market, giving a small grin to Sugawara as he did so. "Look at him, Koushi. I gave him a small earth blessing, back when he was young. Check it out," Nekomata had told him, mouth munching on a freshly fried taiyaki.

Sugawara back then had still been a primarily silent student, and just did what he was told. He lead all the qi in his body to his eyes and glanced at Nekomata next to him. Just like usual, Nekomata was like a burning green sun, and even when Sugawara knew that he would never hurt him, he still took a tiny step back before looking away. After Nekomata's magic, Inuoka's blessing was only a curl of green wisp around the normal pearl-white of a person's soul.

"It's so… dim," Sugawara murmured in surprise, blinking again at Inuoka who was presently haggling over the price of a bag of apples. He glanced back at Nekomata just to make sure his vision was still working and got blinded all over again. Nekomata laughed gleefully at his sour face, half-chewed taiyaki clearly visible as he guffawed at Sugawara's pain.

Nekomata hadn't been a bad teacher. He'd showed him all sort of different blessings – water, metal, fire, wind, earth. Combinations of them, like wood, craft, ice. How blessing's manifested. The differences between blessings that were given (high-ranked priests, certain prophets, oracles, heroes and minor deities), in comparison to blessings that people were born with (sages, royalty, saints, witches, other such positions). How to fight people with blessings. Stuff like that.

So when Kageyama fell asleep and his soul was at its calmest state, Sugawara unzipped his tent flap and pulled all of his qi to his eyes to detect what blessing Kageyama had. If he was lying about the witches and the blessing they gave him, Sugawara could just pack all his things and leave anyway, no big loss. Closing his eyes in preparation, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, the qi settling in a pool within his eyes and the rest of his head – letting him see the qi emanating from all living things, lighting the veins within his eyelids in a greenish gold web that spiralled up and out of his vision.

Slowly, he brought his attention beyond his eyelids, past the tent into the wispy green of the clearing. Kageyama was... Sugawara flinched backwards.

Once he looked it couldn't be ignored, as Kageyama burned a coiling still whirlpool of blue that shone even through his eyelids, the clearing, and all the vague yellow wind qi around. It was unlike the lush green of Nekomata, who always gave a sense of the wild forest, mysterious and filled with mischief. No, Kageyama shone the purest sapphire he'd ever seen, an azure ripple of surface-calm, belying dark indigo currents that roiled underneath in a never-ending spiral into darkness he couldn't see the depth of. Sugawara had to forcefully blink himself out of it, twisting to the side harshly before realising that he was on his knees, breathing hard just from looking. He let all the qi leave his eyes, wiping the sudden sweat on his forehead.

Nekomata had always laughingly said he was already controlling his power and presence, and Sugawara had always scoffed at him because who leaked all that power willingly? An idiot, that's who. The stuff Nekomata leaked in a second was more magic than a normal non-magical produced their whole life.

…Yeah, he wasn't doubting his words now.

Sugawara flopped outside the tent for some cool air, staring into the stars.

A blessing, definitely Divine. A blessing for a prophet? For a future High Priest?

Or a sage?

Sugawara laughed, slightly unbelievingly. Sages were the rarest of the rare, barely one or two in a generation. Entire countries could trace back hundreds of generations and still not record a having produced a sage. Telling himself that he'd meet two sages in his life was a joke practically not worth thinking of.

...What else could it be though? True prophets were rare and powerful too, but prophets siphoned their power from their surroundings leading to a slightly muddy magical composition of different elemental qi in their body. A priest seemed even more unlikely, since they only got power when they prayed and lived their lives in devotion and Kageyama had blatantly said this afternoon that he didn't know any Gods, and had never worshipped at a temple.

Sugawara's thoughts turned towards the sage's staff Nekomata had left for him.

[The staff I gave to you because I have a hunch you'll meet a person who will need it].

It… it couldn't be?

A sage's staff was powerful enough that even if someone couldn't truly use its power, they would still find it somewhat useful. Sugawara had thought he'd be giving it to some religious figure or something and not an actual, new _sage._

If Nekomata knew this, couldn't he, like, warn him or something?

(Thinking of Nekomata though, of course he wouldn't.)

If Kageyama did have access to the gods, then maybe his weird spurts of knowledge and general genius wasn't that unexpected. Water was associated with knowledge, and the blue definitely told Sugawara that Kageyama was affiliated with a water deity… In any case, Sugawara slapped a hand to his forehead in confusion, how come no-one had found him yet? Power attracts power, and if what Kageyama said was true, a witch couldn't give a sage's blessing. Sages were born, not given. Even Sugawara noticed something strange about Kageyama after a mere day of being around him.

Witches did, however, have the power to seal blessings away. And in turn, they had the power to free their sealed blessings. A blessing as powerful as a sage's mark would need the Witch Queen, Kiyo, or her daughter, Princess Kiyoko, or at least someone on the calibre of the Ushijima royalty to control.

How would Kageyama ever earn the favour of any of those figures, when he lived in such a small, forgotten village?

Whoever the witch in Kageyama's tablet was, they had lied that the blessing had come from the witches, probably, to protect him.

(But how? Why? The witches' forest was all the way at the Great Void, near the wastes of Jin, and Shiratori was a country that even Sugawara hadn't been to, existing too far in the North. There couldn't have been any contact. Someone must have liked Kageyama enough to protect him like this, but it was impossible.)

Turning contemplative eyes on the small figure, Sugawara picked himself up and carefully tucked the blanket more securely around him when he noticed the child had kicked it off. He looked down at the boy's face. All the tension and lines that made Kageyama look perpetually tense and focused had smoothed out, and he was actually even snoring slightly.

There. Again. There was a small tinge of fondness, as he tucked him in.

Turns out he couldn't leave Kageyama after all. Even without knowing one hundred percent if he was a sage or not and that Kageyama was probably not a spy himself… if the witches knew about him, who else knew? Who else could start using him? Wu was on his trail, and to search for him they would track Kageyama down even if he left Kageyama behind.

Kageyama would be the best bonus prize they could ask for. No, he couldn't abandon Kageyama, not until he had at least found somewhere safe.

The night fell a little more as he thought, the dark creating a damp chill that made Sugawara rouse from his thoughts and get concerned for Kageyama who only had his blanket. Wet cold only led to sickness…

Then he noticed that Kageyama was completely dry. Just like how Nekomata never got dirty when he did any gardening.

Sugawara was alarmed to feel a twitch of amusement across his lips when Kageyama flailed out of his blanket and frowned angrily at someone in his dream. Muttering about some 'idiot' and a game? Tucking him in again, Sugawara retired to his tent, exhausted.

  


* * *

  


That night, he dreamt of Daichi.

They were raiding the castle kitchens together so that they could haul it all up to Asahi's rooms. They stole a lot of cheeses, a pot of leftover stew, a bag of bread rolls, and a bag of sugar before racing out into the gardens. There, Daichi gripped the bag of cheeses and bread rolls tightly before spinning his qi and leaping up the walls of the palace, bouncing off window sills and toeholds in the mortar before reaching the third floor, rolling softly onto Asahi's balcony before waving down at Sugawara with a laugh and a flash of white teeth.

Sugawara smiled back up before squinting down. He had to be more careful since he'd chosen the pot of stew, so he simply concentrated and bent his knees, jumping up onto the balcony in one go.

Daichi clapped his shoulder when he landed, nearly making him stumble.

"Amazing! When are you going to teach me that, Suga?" Daichi rambled as Sugawara opened the balcony door and walked straight into Asahi's suite of rooms. Sugawara playfully batted his arm back, manoeuvring the stew into a more steady place in the crook of his arm .

"When you can win me in an arm-wrestle, of course."

That quickly earned a grimace.

"Evil, that's what you are," Daichi rolled his eyes, and Asahi poked his head out of his bedroom.

"Evil? Are you talking about yourself?"

Sugawara carefully set the pot down, chuckling as Daichi rolled his sleeves up with a dangerously genial smile on his face.

"Ah? Want me to show you evil, Asahi- _sama?_ "

Asahi visibly shuddered at the usage of formal language, to their utter amusement. "I didn't mean it!" Asahi quickly blurted out in a voice that would have been a squeak if his deep voice would have allowed. "Lets eat all of this already, I mean! I'm super hungry from all the lessons today."

Daichi stopped pretending as his face changed into one of slight concern, eyebrows furrowed.

"They're really pushing you. You okay?"

Asahi flopped onto a couch, staring at Sugawara's pot of stew with hungry eyes.

"Yeah, I don't even know why they want me to memorise the last five-hundred years of our war against demons but the test is in a week and I don't think I have anything I read in my brain."

"Ah, such a muscle-head," Daichi snorted, mouth full of cheese.

"Yeah, a muscle-head," Sugawara nodded, reaching into the bag of rolls and dipping it into stew.

Asahi looked affronted. "M-muscle? I don't even like fighting! You guys are the ones who're training nuts!"

Sad thing was, having a large, hulking, bearded teen tearily whining these things made the situation just funnier to the other two. Daichi sprayed cheese everywhere with his next snort, causing Sugawara to wrinkle his nose while Asahi brushed off chewed cheese off his embroidered pants with disgust.

"Disgusting!" They both exclaimed, Asahi wiping his hands on Daichi's shirt, before all three of them proceeded to let it pass and spoil dinner by gorging on too much stew.

The next moment, Sugawara woke up to a crisp clear morning, Kageyama's breathing soft outside his tent.

His eyes narrowed, thinking back.

Asahi, and his increasing stress. The large shadow of the arm that crashed down on Chou.

It wasn't natural. Something, that day, was unlocked.

Demons?

He carefully put the thought at the back of his mind as he pulled a large grin to his face, opening his tent flap. Kageyama still wasn't up yet, so he leapt up into a tree, and started meditating. Half an hour later, he smiled down.

"Hello, Kageyama! Good morning!"

"Sugawara," Kageyama started and stopped, randomly short like always, as if the thought didn't link to another sentence.

"Yes?" Sugawara asked back, pleasantly.

"Here," Kageyama muttered awkwardly, eyes to the side and ears on fire. In his hands clutched a blue bunch of some borage that Sugawara had nonchalantly muttered he needed when he did inventory last night. He hadn't thought Kageyama was listening.

"Oh, thank you, Kageyama! That's very kind," Sugawara said with genuine happiness, accepting the star-flowers. He'd needed it for a restock of a certain antidote. "Where did you find it? I'm surprised you know about herbs."

"Over there," Kageyama answered, short again. It was as if he never really thought of expanding his thoughts, Sugawara thought with a tinge of amused exasperation. "I hope it helps," Kageyama twitched awkwardly as he did something weird with his arms, an awkward half-wave-half-awkward shoulder jerk, before he stopped midway and instead gave Sugawara a sincere nod instead, ears burning even brighter as he looked sideways.

Sugawara watched, considered. There were many problems that he couldn't solve (Asahi, demons, _Chou_ ), but…

They'd moved so slowly that he could probably solve this one. Let him rest his case against Kageyama. No matter enemy or not, the boy didn't deserve continued suspicion.

He just needed more information.

That night, he sneaked out of his tent and made sure that Kageyama was asleep, before he jumped into the trees and made a beeline back the way they came. Their three day trip was reduced to four hours with his maximum speed (Kageyama really did walk quite slowly, and needed quite a few breaks) as Sugawara went back to Kageyama's dilapidated village.

"Kageyama Tobio?" An old man scratched his beard, with eye bags that dipped into his cheeks and stinking heavily of a person who hadn't bathed for at least a month. "Sounds familiar. Probably an orphan, ask the lady down the street. Pink hair, name's Hana," the man added helpfully.

He found the middle-aged woman sitting in front of an old building, picking her nails. "Kageyama Tobio disappeared a few days back," Hana regretfully murmured to him. "A kind boy, he is, even though he is a little strange. Never got along with the other orphans, insisted on living alone."

Hana twirled her pink hair around a finger, staring at Sugawara in curiosity. Behind her, Sugawara sensed only a few small living signatures within the orphanage.

"He never showed signs of magic or power?" Sugawara asked.

"Well, he was always weird, but I've never seen him shoot any fireballs or anything," the woman replied, obviously quite ignorant in the way that magic worked. "If you want more information, there was another woman who gave handouts to orphans weekly. Yoko doesn't mind questions, you'll find her in the town square around this time."

A relatively pretty young lady was folding up a cart in the square when he arrived.

"Kageyama?" She asked, pausing at his question. "Well, he has always been stand-offish, but it's normal among orphans." After his next question, she looked at him strangely. "Weird? Well, he has always been silent. Lives in his head, that boy. I heard him talking to himself when he was alone a few times, but… we all have our own traumas. I guess he misses his mother, poor boy. Why are you asking?"

Even if he'd disguised himself, it was never good to be under scrutiny. Sugawara politely disengaged himself, and located Kageyama's past house.

An empty, drafty square of dirt. A small wooden slab propped up by stones for a desk. A utilitarian storage area, relatively clean. A holey piece of cloth that had once been a shirt lay abandoned in the corner, used for wiping probably. The wooden walls were thin enough that even a non-reinforced punch could probably crumble parts of the wall. Nothing gave him answers to the conundrum that was… Kageyama.

When he visited the small field a villager had told him had been Kageyama's, he found etched characters on a nearby rock, clearly symbols that held a meaning of some kind. A script. Kageyama was educated.

However, there was no school in the village he'd just passed. When he searched his memory of languages and scripts, the etchings on the rock only vaguely reminded him of some ancient, nearly dead script called hiragana, a language that only ancient history scholars used nowadays. How would Kageyama have known it?

Sugawara hummed in vague thought, fingertips tracing over the characters.

But nothing… indicating any contact with an enemy. Hiragana would be too easily cracked as a code. Although Hiragana only added to Kageyama as an enigma, Sugawara did know that the witches often used it for summonings. Perhaps Kageyama was more entrenched in witchery than Sugawara suspected. After an added moment of contemplation, Sugawara raced back to their camp, even faster now that he'd warmed up, to their clearing where Kageyama had once again had kicked off his blankets.

Adjusting the small blanket that Kageyama had, he finally noted the quality - small, and threadbare. If they were sticking together, he would have to buy a new one for Kageyama soon. Also some more supplies, because he'd noticed that Kageyama seemed to like dishes with a little more meat in them, and frankly his cheeks looked better already, even with only a few days of good food. It wasn't as if Sugawara lacked money…

Sugawara raked a hand over his hair, confused out of his mind. It was one thing to stick to a Sage. It was another to care. Why was he getting attached so quickly? Even Daichi and Asahi took a few months to get him to properly talk to them. A little unsettled at his own emotions, Sugawara went back to sleep.

A few days later, he followed Kageyama into town to shop for some supplies for the both of them instead of avoiding civilisation like normal. Even though he'd been going slowly for Kageyama's sake, there had been no pursuers so far. Eyeing a camping supplies store that had a few warm blankets on display, he reached for his purse and—

"This is nice fabric," a low voice muttered, and Sugawara tensed at the hand that clutched a handful of his cloak. A pleasant enough face, generic, but sharp-eyed in a way that Sugawara instinctively knew to dislike. The man continued to drag the cloak down a little, making the hood shadowing his face start to slide back. "Very nice. Not from around here, are you? Hmm, the east?" Sugawara discreetly pinched his cloak so that it stopped sliding backwards, knowing when the intruder had seen too much when he was able to make eye-contact. The smile that the man made was triumphant even before his supposed 'offer'. Not good. "Want to trade for it, son?"

Alarm bells were flaring in Sugawara's mind, even as he tugged the hood back over his head, careful not to look alarmed for Kageyama's sake, who had turned around and was staring at them with an inquisitive tilt to his head. Kageyama was thin, small, and a noncombatant. He didn't know if he could protect him properly if a few agents ambushed them in this town.

"No thank you," He grinned, clapping Kageyama on the back to use it as an excuse to step before him. Kageyama, with a growing furrow on his forehead, seemed to notice that something was amiss and hefted their purchases up in readiness, even as Sugawara started dismissing the guy. "Me and my friend still have a ways to go, you see!"

He laughed, already stepping backwards as he joked. "Believe me, I could use some coin too."

Then he walked Kageyama around the corner, stuffed all the things Kageyama had in his arms into his bag and practically ran out of the backstreets of the village back into the forest.

"You say you got a blessing, right?" Sugawara asked, hands tight on Kageyama's shoulders. Sage or not, a divine blessing meant divine words. Kageyama met his eyes with confusion, "You can see words floating above heads? What did he have?"

He distantly noted that he didn't like how nervousness stretched Kageyama's features.

"Clever-eyed Profiteer. Why?" Kageyama replied.

Of course. An observant busy-body who would do (or say) anything for money.

His pursuers had probably already caught up to him.

Sugawara glanced at the road to the Capital, and made a split-second calculation. If he burned himself out, rushed at maximum speed without sleeping, he'd get to Duke Tsukishima's Frontier City in a week. The month to take the trip was an estimate made by Kageyama's speed anyway, he can find a safe place for Kageyama, settle him down as he did the business Nekomata told him to…

But he glanced down, saw Kageyama's small determined face staring up at him, and faltered.

Kageyama had tilted his head in inquisitive worry, large blue eyes having a sort of confused gleam that was starting to connect dots together. He looked as angry as usual, frowning as his brain turned over and over. Although many would probably argue Kageyama wasn't expressive, Sugawara would argue otherwise. For the past week, Kageyama had only expressed himself like a book to an absolute stranger like Sugawara. Happy when he cooked breakfast, proud when Sugawara smiled and said it was delicious. Stumbled awkwardly over strange questions, followed Sugawara with dogged determination. Kageyama, holding the sleeve of a stranger after a nightmare, with a whole village who didn't care that he disappeared. No stranger awareness at all. What if Kageyama trusted someone else exactly the same way as he did for him? What if someone who didn't know his worth attacked him for his naivety?

What if someone who _did_ know his worth stole him and... His own childhood flashed in his mind. Sugawara flattened his lips as he turned on his heel, marching quickly down the road, listening to Kageyama's quick footsteps as he followed behind. His mind flew through scenario after scenario. What could he do?

That night, he made preparations. Sugawara swept the road and removed any traces that would lead to anyone tracking them to their campsite. Then he put all those traces back, leading to a fake clearing, carving some false ward carvings on trees around an illusionary tent to make it more legitimate.

Then he went back, to where Kageyama was lying wide awake on his small pallet. His blue eyes immediately shifted over to him when he strolled into the clearing, question clear on his face.

"If you want to speak, Kageyama, speak," Sugawara encouraged.

The other boy frowned in thought before finally settling with a slow, "Are you okay?"

Of course, Sugawara thought, of course he asks how I'm feeling first. He cursed his heart for softening a little more. "Maybe," Sugawara shrugged. "I hope I'm alright, at least! Good night, Kageyama."

For the first time, Kageyama's face creased in dissatisfaction when he looked at Sugawara, but he ignored it.

That night, Sugawara packed up his tent the moment Kageyama fell asleep, watching. In the early morning, Kageyama woke up probably expecting to make breakfast. Instead, Sugawara gave him a pack of trail mix, before pretending to do inventory, slipping his weapons back into their slots within his clothing – a small knife in each boot, various pockets in his belt for poisons. Only one pack of needles, since they were highly specialised and annoying to use sometimes, and a small metal blowpipe he put in a front pocket in front of his heart for easy access and extra protection if need be. Then he loaded the rest of the hidden spaces around his arms and legs with shuriken and kunai. He holstered his two tantō – one hanging from his hip, and one on his back. A cloak over it all, sleeves and hands free. Hood up.

During all of this, he felt Kageyama's stare on his back, waiting. Watching.

As always.

How was he going to protect Kageyama? It wasn't a boast to say Sugawara was well-known in Chou. Near-undefeated in combat. A young genius, in poisons, medicine, hand-to-hand combat, projectiles and short weaponry. The Sage's Apprentice.

They wouldn't have sent any less than the best.

Sugawara gritted his teeth, staring at all his supplies. Then a sudden flock of birds flew into the air with loud shrieks.

All the wards he set up around the fake campsite shattered. Even before the first curls of smoke rose into the air, Sugawara knew.

"They've come," he murmured. As always, his instincts were right. They had been much nearer than he expected. He'd been stupid to put down his guard.

Nekomata's staff was the most powerful thing in his arsenal. Most of the things that lived around Nekomata grew like crazy. Qi was the life-force of the world, and everyone had a set capacity of it throughout their life. A Sage however, wasn't a container – they were producers, a natural source of qi made human through divine connection. Everywhere he went, plants grew like mad, soaking up Nekomata's magic to grow. This staff had been soaking Nekomata's magic for a decades.

It should be able to protect Kageyama.

"I still don't know if you're a spy or not, but if you are innocent, I'm sorry for dragging you into this due to my paranoia," Sugawara said quietly stated, before pulling out the staff and it's near sentient power to Kageyama. He knew Kageyama was innocent, but this statement... was an apology in itself, for how he'd treated Kageyama this week. He knew he'd disappointed Kageyama again and again during the first few days with his non-answers. "This is a staff that was given to me by my mentor, who was also a sage, one blessed like you. If you're really who you way you are, the staff will protect you. If not, then you're more capable than you look, and I don't have to worry."

If Sugawara stated that he was still suspicious of Kageyama, maybe if he was too injured to return, or if he died in battle, Kageyama would feel less burdened since he'd think they never really connected. Just another stranger, wandering through his life with an unfortunate end. When Sugawara looked at Kageyama in the eyes, the pre-dawn made his already pale, little gaunt face look even more scared. Somehow, he managed to scrounge out a kind smile, pushing the staff into unresisting hands.

…A powerful qi signature was streaking their way.

Sugawara quickly took out the letters that Nekomata had given him from his pack and slipped it into his pocket just as a black shadow flitted into the clearing.

Judging from the footwork, he was from Wu. The man smelled like smoke and fire, and a hint of the sea.

"I found you, Sugawara. Hand it over."

Sugawara gave a tsk inside even as his face twisted into the biggest, most friendly smile he had as he stepped slightly away from Kageyama to draw him out of this intruder's attention, bouncing a little to loosen his muscles and keep the attention. "Hmm, any chance of you telling me who sent you?"

"No." A smirk from under the cowl. "Your time's out."

The first strike, to Sugawara sudden blinding anger, was at Kageyama. It was with a seeping coldness that Sugawara took a flash of a step back to catch the shuriken between his fingers.

"Wha—" Kageyama let out a startled gasp, three seconds too late. He would have already died.

"Wow, your aim is really bad!" Sugawara replied, even letting a little bit of a chuckle leak into his voice even as he made sure not to let Kageyama draw any more attention. The attacker's face had set into a grim line, and Sugawara felt a cold streak of satisfaction. Underestimated him, did he? "I was waaay to the right, you know?"

The shuriken wasn't of bad quality, some part of Sugawara's mind noted even as snapped his wrist to send it straight back at the intruder's own jugular with a little burst of qi behind it so that the attacker couldn't catch it again and make it a ridiculous round of hot potato. When the assassin dodged it with more speed than most elites, Sugawara made a snap decision. He had to bring the fight away. With a leap, Sugawara raced east, heart leaping upon the gamble that the attacker from Wu would immediately follow him.

It wasn't even a few seconds later when he felt a huge explosion of qi behind him that crashed over him like a wave to realise one, his gamble had failed, two, Kageyama was now undoubtedly a sage after all and not something like a prophet, and three, the attacker would now know that.

He had to kill this man.

Sugawara stopped at a clearing far enough, planted a few poisonous mines and waited.

The assassin burst into the clearing with a few burst poison grenades. A charred leg for a slice to the assassin's shoulder, a nick to the neck for a poisoned stab to the stomach. A bruised rib for a flinch when the assassin threw a flashbang straight into his face. It hadn't been a surprise to Sugawara that a man sent to take him out could keep up with him, but he hadn't expected someone who had been prepared for every single one of his tricks. Not just know his tricks, but know his trick's weaknesses.

(He hadn't let that much slip in Chou right? He hadn't gotten that soft?)

It ended with Sugawara winded in the middle of the clearing, hand over his heart as if trying to catch his breath when in fact his hand had curled around Nekomata's letters. If he couldn't recover fast enough, he'd set them on fire before any attack that could take his life. His grey hair rested in clumps over his forehead as he glared up at the Wu assassin, who uncharacteristically paused before dealing the final blow.

"Sugawara Koushi," the assassin slowly sounded in his mouth. Tendrils of power come from his next words, trying to trickle into his mind and failing underneath Nekomata's protection. Truth spells, Sugawara thought with disgust. "Was the boy you were with one of your missions commanded by the Sage?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Sugawara wheezed with an easy smile. "You don't seem to know any post-mortem interrogation techniques," Sugawara clicked his tongue, tone patronising as he shook his head in disappointment. "Wu's standards are slipping, I see."

Sugawara circulated his qi faster, ready to spring away, even as the assassin's twisted his own qi to light up the runes in his knives, power smoking along the blades until they gleamed, ready for a death blow. Just as the assassin was about to swing his arm, a small figure dived between their stand-off, a familiar staff swinging. A small tense back stood protecting him, sweat wetting the black hair, chest struggling to catch air with harsh panting. The staff was nearly too big for him, drooping in a utterly useless grip.

Sugawara stared at Kageyama in utter disbelief.

Was he an idiot?

Who, who would dive between two trained individuals in the middle of a battle—

"Back off." Kageyama's voice was strong despite the shaking hands that held up Nekomata's staff. "You're not welcome here, _Chaser Assassin._ " The boy stood with a conviction that still completely baffled Sugawara.

"Sage," the chaser had backed off. "You're not involved in this. If you hired this boy to protect you, believe me that after this is done I will gladly escort you wherever you need to go."

Sugawara's eyebrow twitched at such a bald lie, before using all the qi he had previously accumulated to haul himself onto his knees. "Don't believe him," he scoffed, "he'll just kidnap you."

Oh ow. His ribs hurt from just breathing.

"Are you okay?" Kageyama asked immediately, voice immediately anxious as the boy half turned towards him. This strange little boy with no martial training at all, who made a really pathetic defensive pose with his staff all in an effort to protect a stranger he'd met for a week.

All thoughts of running away halted, paused, and changed into ones where Sugawara tried to somehow tuck Kageyama under his good arm and flee a still armed and near full-functional assassin. Just when Sugawara was (half) determined to go on a (half) kamikaze attack, the whole clearing was flooded with unimaginably pure qi – so pure that he could see the waves of qi even without any sort of enhancement. Strong enough he could feel it in the air as he breathed it in, heavy and clean.

It also froze their enemy in his mid-air lunge.

Sugawara's eyes widened at seeing something he'd previously thought impossible. Even Nekomata didn't...

"Leave," the tiny underfed idiot midget solemnly stated in front of him, still carefully placing himself in between Sugawara and the assassin who'd retreated to the trees by then. In the meantime, Kageyama shook the staff experimentally, before asking Sugawara with no beguile at all, "Is this blue thing magic?"

He couldn't be serious.

"...Yes, it is," Sugawara replied anyway. Then he marvelled at all this qi everywhere, examining the surprisingly normal boy that made it happen, with his worn sandals, old button shirt and still trembling hands. Trembling, not from fear this time but strain.

Oh. Of course. "But Kageyama, we both know you can't hold this for long." Sugawara paused. "You can leave me behind if you want." By himself, if he pulled out all the stops, he could probably incapacitate the assassin though by now he'd half guessed Kageyama would probably ignore him…

To his exasperation, Kageyama turned his heel and did, in fact, ignore his perfectly valid suggestion. Then with a scrunch of his brow, and a tightening grip on his staff, all the blue qi was somehow… gripped. Swung, until it was one solid blue line that led to where the assassin was still waiting, outside of their bubble of azure qi. The next second, Kageyama yelled _"Fos!"_

Sugawara nearly clapped a hand to his forehead.

"What, you're threatening me with that useless campfire spell?" The assassin spluttered, because even assassins have pride, thank you very much. Sugawara understood completely. If someone tried to attack him with _fos_ he would totally get annoyed too. At most, _fos_ could light a cigarette, let alone be any sort of attack spell…

The next second, there was a roar of a large bonfire at night, the crackling of a devouring forest fire as the largest fireball Sugawara had ever seen shot out from the tip of Kageyama's staff to eat all the blue qi, a blue-white monstrosity that shot straight towards the assassin and past him, ploughing through dozens of thick, decades old trees and far into the distance.

The assassin would have lost more than an arm from that if he'd been hit head on, and when Kageyama seemed to summon another wave of his qi, he wisened up and streaked away. Sugawara followed him with his senses, tracking him until he disappeared, far away. It was true. He was really gone, probably to report to his superiors that there was a new sage.

While Sugawara was cursing a little at being unable to kill the guy, Kageyama stared at the destruction in front of him with a sort of slow-burning horror. Whirling around, the boy bent in a ninety degrees bow yelled out an apology. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Really!" Kageyama insisted, facing the floor.

Sugawara tilted his head expressionlessly. Didn't mean to... what? Burn down the forest? Sugawara couldn't believe his ears. After all that, he cared about Sugawara's opinion on his destruction of the environment? Sugawara wanted to burst out laughing, only to choke on a broken rib because, ow, that was a thing.

"It's," Sugawara struggled through the pain, "it's okay, Kageyama. We should probably get away from here though, just in case?" He continued in bemusement at the lost fluttering that Kageyama was doing around Sugawara's wounds.

"Are you okay?" The kid asked, all worried and Sugawara couldn't even try to stop the bubble of amusement and affection that popped somewhere in his sternum and made his face twitch into a smile.

Kageyama helped him hobble back to their camp, obviously straining underneath his weight. He was all bones and solemn glares really, just a stick of unwavering determination. And not once did the kid try to grab Nekomata's staff back when Sugawara needed it as a walking stick.

Something in Sugawara's chest eased.

His burn salve was as effective as always, and when he explained the life-debt thing to Kageyama, he was expecting something normal. As the Sage's apprentice (not that, you know, he ever told Kageyama he was Nekomata's apprentice as such, but it was plenty obvious that he came from somewhere well-off and powerful by now) he could basically promise anything in the world. 

"Be my friend?" Kageyama asked, the tips of his ears turning red. 

And Sugawara stopped. Be his friend, that's all. No loyalties, no threats upon his life. Just 'to be a friend' and do 'friend-things'.

Kageyama obviously didn't know the weight of that statement. Friends were an interesting subject to Sugawara – something he didn't know much of, really, except that Daichi and Asahi did the friend-thing much better than he, had lead him step by step into understanding what friends were supposed to be. He'd lost all of them. Daichi, Asahi, Inuoka, the guardsmen, the cooks in the kitchen... and Michimiya, who had bought his freedom with her own and asked nothing in return. Sugawara didn't have a great track record with friends. 

But he did know one thing. Friends stuck up for one another. They were someone to trust.

Kageyama, as much as he was just a set of rough-knees and large serious blue eyes now, was the sage of the future. Countries would be fighting over him until he grew powerful. Get sucked into the petty squabbles of politics, chewed and torn and near digested before being spat out into the most convenient conflict when he became inconvenient, something unbeatable, a quest like 'eradicate the demons!' or something. He would be one of the guides of the world, whether or not he wanted to be.

And here he was, asking Sugawara to have his back throughout it all.

Did he know? Did he know the weight of what he was asking?

No. No he didn't, did he?

Sugawara stifled a chuckle, warm.

"Kageyama, okay. I'll be your friend."

  


* * *

  


_Sugawara loves spicy things, but he also really likes eating spicy things with people who can't handle spicy. As in, Asahi. (Their faces are just hilarious, okay?). Only he does it underneath a veneer of niceness, of course. Like, 'ah, here's some cold water!' but secretly he knows cold water only makes it worse…_

_In a quiet, underground poll, certain members voted for who was the most stubborn within the Karasuno alumni. Kageyama was a strong contender for first, along with Hinata and surprisingly, Yamaguchi. In the end, the dark horse Ennoshita won due to his strong, unwavering, i-gotta-prove-myself mentality. (To his utter sadness, Asahi placed last)._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos, and the comment. It's very kind of you.  
> I think it's probably time to say that this fic is a work that had been in my thoughts for a long time in my younger years that had been fleshed out in excited spurts. Those years, I dreamed of writing fantasy, no matter the quality, because writing has always been a pleasure for me. But these past years have been tiring and this story had been set aside. I love Haikyuu though, and this is my slow attempt to re-explore writing for fun . I apologise for any inconsistencies in advance, and thank you again, for reading.  
> Next chapter, it will be back to Kageyama's point of view, and meeting with Tsukishima.  
> I'll be finishing my research thesis for the next 1 and a half months, so bear with me until then. :D


	5. The Meeting of Tsukishima Kei

"Did you know? The Great Sage is back!"

Sugawara perked his ears up at hearing the whispers from the around the corner.

"Really?" Another voice replied.

"Yeah," the first maid continued, sounding excited. From the smell, it seemed like they were folding just clean laundry, packing the summer clothes with some dried lavender to prepare for the winter. "He dumped a huge bag of laundry on us again, before heading to the King's rooms!"

"The palace is always much livelier with Nekomata around," the second maid laughed. "It's not an exaggeration to say that even the trees look brighter with him around."

Sugawara brightened at the news, thinking of his teacher's slightly devious smile under his large nose and kind eyes. Last time he saw Nekomata, the daisies that grew from his scalp hadn't bloomed yet. Now that it was the end of summer, maybe new plants had taken root? With a happy bounce, he leapt out a high window (ignoring a random butler's half-anguished cry at half-flipping his newly neatened rug) and raced up towards King Naoi's rooms. The wards all allowed him to slide through, as he landed softly on the windowsill.

He had just cracked open the window into the bathroom suite when Sugawara paused.

Voices were filtering through, more solemn than he'd expect from Naoi and Nekomata having a reunion. Whenever the two met up, they tried to be as uproarious as possible.

…Of course, eavesdropping was wrong, but it didn't matter if no-one knew, right?

Slowly, as Sugawara settled down and closed the window behind him, the voices became more distinct.

"…id you find any of them?"

"I found a few graves," Nekomata replied, his voice a large sigh. "Takahashi, from the 1997 class. He was a winemaker all the way in Wakan. He died four years ago, but he somehow wooed Rie, the female manager he had a crush on back in the day! It was good to see her face, even for a little while. I played with their grandkid, heh."

Naoi joined in with a small huff of laughter, before continuing. "So you found the pattern again?"

"Yeah. People reincarnate in groups. I found half of the 1997 class near that Wakan town."

"It's good to know Takahashi found happiness in his life," Naoi replied, voice a little thick after swallowing some drink. "Anyone else?"

"I'll give you these pages. There's… inside, there's a few more of the students we coached together."

There was a rustle of pages, before the King cleared his throat. "Something is on your mind, old man," Naoi said. "What else did you find this time?"

King Naoi usually conducted himself with less dignity than Sugawara usually expected from royalty, but here his voice had dipped into a register of seriousness that he had never heard before. The cold tile underneath Sugawara's fingers felt a little damp as he unconsciously leaned closer to hear their discussion more clearly. With his other hand, he pushed the door open a little more.

"Ukai's kid was right, Naoi," Nekomata heaved a sigh. "Remember how Kiyoko sent a crow a few months back about how the world needs a hero again? Just like how it needed me and old man Ukai, back ninety years." A swig, and a cough of satisfaction. "I've been watching you know. Sugawara is a monster in combat the more I see him train, and Inuoka has leadership potential that sometimes makes me want to bow down. We've been keeping an eye on Azumane because of their name, and I've heard that the Azumane lord had kept his son hidden because Azumane Asahi made an accidental contract with _those_ people. Hah. And guess who I just heard was hanging around Azumane Asahi?"

"Hmm?"

Nekomata burst out in loud laughter. "Some mixed magic martial arts kid called Sawamura! Trust Kuroo's year to be problematic, bwahahaha! All the kids from his year as captain are monsters! I mean, just look at Koushi!"

King Naoi gave a low hum of agreement, a noise he always made when he nodded. "It's as we've feared then, everything is starting to gather and move. It's great we've found a few of Ukai's kids, but have you found ours? Kuroo? Kai? Yaku, Kozume…?"

"Finding Inuoka was a freak accident," Nekomata replied. "I've scoured everywhere on our side. They're not in the north or the East. So either they're across the desert, or…"

"They're not dead," Naoi replied firmly.

"How do you know?" Nekomata returned a little bleakly. "This world is cruel. I found Shibayama's whole village slaughtered last time, even though I couldn't find his corpse… Hmm?"

Within a blink, Sugawara suddenly found himself staring at Nekomata's scarf just an inch away from his nose, whose crawling ivy pattern suddenly seemed so… hypnotising.

"It's not yet time for you to know these things yet, Koushi," Nekomata's voice echoed down through a layer of cotton balls, as his consciousness started to fade. Then he felt a small poke to his forehead. His head lolled backwards in time to see his teacher's face, white brows on sly eyes, a slightly sad lilt to his smile. "I'll tell you all these things a little later, hmm?"

All the questions that he wanted to ask faded into a fuzzy white. Sugawara blinked.

Oh, when did he close the window? Whatever. He settled down beneath the window to eavesdrop, carefully crouching so he made no noise. Of course, eavesdropping was wrong, but it didn't matter if no-one knew, right? Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead, and he wiped it in confusion. It wasn't as if the run up the castle walls had been hard. Why was his heart jack-rabbiting like he'd run a fifty kilometre marathon at full speed?

"There's a wine-boom in Wakan right now," he heard Nekomata's voice echo down the hallway. "I bought a couple of bottles back, Naoi. When do you have time to get wasted with me? Your prime minister is too strict, we have to be careful."

Trust his master to bribe the king with alcohol on his first day back from a long trip.

"Hmm? Koushi, I can hear you breathing in the bathroom like a creep~ If you want to join us with our drinking, you should just admit it like a man!"

Sugawara winced. Oops. Busted. Walking out the bathroom through to the King's study, he gave a respectful bow to King Naoi's presence in the chair. "You know you shouldn't be drinking so much, old man," he replied, pulling out a chair and crossing his legs around a cushion in the seat.

"Nag nag nag," Nekomata shrugged, wizened hands curled around a fancy looking bottle. He was hunched over it like it was some precious treasure. "You got to learn how to live life, Koushi!"  


* * *

  
After two weeks of tensed, constant vigilance that Kageyama noticed Sugawara had masked with chipper anecdotes, a few magic tips and teasing getting-to-know-you questions, they finally reached a town where Sugawara was comfortable with entering.

They promptly found a restaurant and vigorously slurped up a few bowls of beef and tomato pasta that tasted like the best thing in the world after weeks of Sugawara's camp-food fare.

"That was satisfying," Sugawara sighed, resting his mop of hair on the backrest he stared up at the ceiling, feeling slightly bloated in the best way. He leant an eye towards his travelling companion, who was still hauling large mouthfuls of pasta and swallowing only after one or two chews. "Whoa, Kageyama. Easy there, you'll choke."

Kageyama gave him one dark side eye, cheeks bulging before admittedly struggling to swallow the whole mouthful. Soundlessly, Sugawara slid a glass of water across the worn wooden table, a slight teasing smirk on his face that echoed a soundless _told you so_.

Their table was silent save for Kageyama's frantic gulps of the water, letting the sounds of the rest of the restaurant take their place. Across a few tables, there was a family with four children talking loudly to one another about some beetle they found in the forest this morning, and a few more travellers that were scattered around the place. There was a group of five in the corner that seemed like local adventurers, with staves on some backs, and what looked like a sword sheathe under the cloak of another. A few pot plants hung from the ceiling, casting funnily shaped shadows across the room. It was a warm, happy place.

Sugawara took all of this in, a small, happy sigh waiting somewhere behind his sternum. It had been a long time since he'd felt comfortable enough to relax a little.

Kageyama, on the other hand, was also thinking it had been a long time.

For him to eat good, warm fresh food, that is.

( _"Oh my god,"_ Ennoshita cracked first, surprisingly. _"Warm, filling food. Pasta. Tomatoes. Tomato sauce. Fresh pasta."_ )

( _"There, there,"_ Narita consoled Ennoshita. _"It's only been what… twelve years?"_ )

Kageyama slammed the empty water cup on the table and immediately hurled himself back at his plate of pasta. Another twirl of the fork, another huge bite.

Although it was a little bland and there were a quite a bit more spices than he was used to…

"Itsh good," Kageyama mumbled through his mouthful of pasta, chewing it all a few more times this time. 

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Kageyama," Sugawara chided him a little, reaching for a napkin because man, didn't the kid notice half of his face was covered with sauce?

Another difficult swallow later, Kageyama shrugged at repeating himself and quickly mopped up his plate, reaching for a few pieces of bread that the owner had insisted on being complimentary before being interrupted by a thorough scrub of his face. Kageyama bore the treatment with a stoic silence until Sugawara was satisfied and dumped the used napkins on the table, taking a piece of bread for himself.

"We can stay in the towns and stick to roads a little more now," Sugawara smiled wryly at Kageyama's conflicted face at being too full to eat, but wanting more food. "We can eat like this more, okay? Don't force yourself, we'll definitely have a nice meal like this later."

Kageyama eyed Sugawara's hooded head closely, rubbing his stomach with his other hand. "Are you sure?"

There were assassin's chasing Sugawara after all. He'd rather forgo food than let Sugawara be in danger.

"Yeah. Towns as big as this one makes it harder to track people, and from now on towns will only get progressively bigger as we get closer to Whiteriver," Sugawara shrugged. "It'll be quite hard to track us now that we've reached towns that have a lot of human traffic, and there are also a lot of routes we can take to go to the Capital from here too."

"Oh." Kageyama nodded in understanding, chewing on a large piece of the fluffy bit of the bread. This place baked the outside a little harder than he was used to, as Japan favoured milky, soft-textured bread, but the insides were easy to chew. He'd quickly hollowed out the small log that they'd be given, and when his fingers found no more Sugawara plucked the hard shell out of his fingers and finished the whole thing in a few bites.

"Want to look around your first town, Kageyama?" Sugawara offered after a quick gulp of water, and he quickly nodded. Inside his head, many of his teammates cheered.

( _"It's a fantasy town, Kageyama!"_ ) Tanaka cheered with Kinoshita, who'd always kept books like _That One Time I Reincarnated Into a Fantasy World with Tonnes of Money_ and _Collecting Monsters and Saving the World! A Villainess Noble Girl's Dilemma_ in stacks within the clubroom because his shelf at home was too full. Although Kageyama had helped stack the books whenever they toppled over from the actions of rambunctious or clumsy team members, he'd never held interest in them much. But in the first few years of Kageyama's existence, Kinoshita had been one of the few who'd consistently been positive, telling stories whenever it was too silent in his own mind.

( _"It's just your growing phase, Kageyama,"_ ) Kinoshita would console him, voice like an encouraging pat on the back. ( _"You're too young now, but I'm totally sure you'll see more of the world one day! I mean, isn't the White City that you can see at the edge of the forest telling ya that there's so much more to see than this run-down village? Trust me,"_ ) a thump to his chest, _("your sempai will never lie!")_

Kinoshita seemed excited now, chatting with Nishinoya and Tanaka near inaudibly at the back of his mind. Kageyama allowed himself a small smile at their excitement. Sugawara had tugged both of their hoods back over their heads as they wandered towards the main market, but having them on weren't as conspicuous as Kageyama would've thought. Many traders and travellers had hoods or hats that covered some of their features, friendly or otherwise.

They quickly rounded the streets towards a loud bazaar, filled with rickety wooden stalls and all sorts of people sitting on rugs with their wares on display. Many men and women wound through the mess with precision, stopping to stare at any of the small bits and ends on display that interested them. It was a surprisingly ordered human chaos, even with some of the more eager merchants yelling their prices as loudly as possible. Kageyama clenched the staff in his hand tight as he faced the biggest crowd he'd seen since Japan. It reminded him of his first shock in Tokyo's peak hour transit, where he didn't even know how to begin to rush into the packed subway.

"We'll still avoid shops for a while," Sugawara told him apologetically, "but bazaars are still a fun experience to have! We have to stick together, okay? Here, I'll take the staff from you, it'll be a bit hard to walk around with it in the bazaar." When Kageyama's eyes followed the staff's descent into Sugawara's spatial bag, having grown surprisingly attached to the weight of it as they hiked the mountains, Sugawara responded with a pat on his head. "I'll give it back to you when we head back out, okay?"

Kageyama glanced up, before giving him a firm nod and turned around.

Always so serious, that boy. Sugawara shrugged and meandered after him as they dove into the human mess of the bazaar.

Glass trinkets, cloudy or bubbled with certain colours and shapes, jewellery, and even fancy soaps and perfumes. Kageyama's eyes tracked them all, alongside the human titles that refused to leave his sight whenever he glanced at a new person, though titles were surprisingly boring when he compared merchants. [Kind Merchant] [Swindling Merchant] [Fat Merchant] [Merchants who loves Cats]... Kageyama carefully steered Sugawara around a kind looking merchant whose title was [Human Trafficking Merchant] to pass a stall selling squawking, caged chickens, Kageyama stopped at a stall manned by a nice, plump looking lady who was selling teas and cakes, who had set up a few small tables behind her stall out of the main shuffle of people.

"Tired?" Sugawara asked behind him, having somehow never been more than a step away from him even in the worst crush of the crowd.

The crowd had been kind of tiring. But Sugawara had always been more of a coffee than a tea person… Kageyama frowned at the prices on the chalkboard the woman had set up in front of the stall. Was that cheap or expensive?

"Two cups of rosehip tea, please!" Sugawara asked behind him sunnily, pulling out a few coins out of his sleeve. "We'll have a table at the back too, if you don't mind."

The plump [Motherly Merchant] took one glance at the two and pocketed the coins, ushering them towards the back with a wide smile. "Won't be a minute!" She promised. "Feel free to order some cakes too, if you're hungry!" The stall naturally blocked some of the noise, and they comfortably joined a table next to another couple who also looked well-travelled.

In the middle of settling down, the couple next to them mentioned a name immediately caught his notice.

On the left, [Careful Magician] gave a short gasp of surprise as he stared at his companion. "Are you sure, Hachi?"

"Yeah," [Earnest Adventurer] said, "Jun doesn't say much but anything she says is accurate. You know that."

"But any outsider can see that there's no reason for the Tsukishima heir to kill his own family! You'd think as a noble he'd get a more thorough investigation or get something other than execution as a sentence!"

"Apparently the heir is in a coma, and the second son is only twelve or some shit like that," the adventurer replied. "No-one's willing to pull strings for'em. With how things are going, I don't think many are standing on their side. Politics," he scoffed, spitting in the gutter beside him. "Leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

"That's harsh," the magician replied, face sad. "The Tsukishima family has always been fair and noble. Do you think we can reach White River before they announce the sentence?"

"The retrial is in three days, but we all know it's just a place for them to publicly announce that those fuckers in the government have decided to execute him. Young Lord Akiteru's going to be dead by the end of the week. We won't get there on time—"

Kageyama was startled out of his eavesdropping when Sugawara suddenly stood back up again, his eyebrows furrowed and his usual grin gone.

"Sorry Kageyama, we have to go." Extending a hand for Kageyama to take, he gave an apologetic smile to the merchant who was still brewing their tea and quickly left towards a small side alley. Once out of sight, Sugawara immediately wrapped Kageyama up in his cloak and lifted him up, jumping up to the roofs and dashing away on the roof tiles.

Slowly, Kageyama carefully considered the situation and opened his mouth. "Are you going to the Capital because of something with Tsukishima?"

Sugawara gave a terse nod.

After a whole afternoon of his teammates chatting happily in his head as they marvelled over this and that in their first other-world market experience, the silence he had was uncanny.

"…Hey, Sugawara." Kageyama prodded his shoulder. "What are the Tsukishima's names?"

Sugawara spared him a glance down, before answering after clearing a difficult jump over a wide alleyway. "The Tsukishima Dukedom holds primary presence in the Capital of the West, Whiteriver, and their current members are Lord Tsukishima Kokuyou, his wife Lady Tsukishima Kaguya, and their two sons, Tsukishima Akiteru and Tsukishima Kei."

Huh.

"Are we…going to rescue them?" Kageyama asked roughly, squinting against the wind in his face as he realised they'd reached the town's border. It seems they were going to directly leave.

It was then that Sugawara gave him a humourless smile.

"You up for it?"

( _"Oi. You."_ Tsukishima's quiet voice finally echoed in his mind. _"You better not let my brother die."_ )

Kageyama nodded resolutely.

"Of course."  


* * *

  
In university, Tsukishima studied some subject or another that sounded difficult (Kageyama would forget which course he studied in the few times Yamaguchi tried to update him on such things). It looked hard and had something to do with numbers. Commerce, or accounting? IT or another? Or was it something totally different and was actually law?

No matter the case, they did continue seeing each other because Tsukishima had joined the university volley ball circuit as well, and despite doing a full-load and extra-curricular activities he would still be there, smirking on the other side of the net whenever he successfully blocked a spike, or read through an especially clever play.

It didn't help that they knew each other like the back of their own knees. Their games drew more interest than most whenever they versed each other, because their plays by necessity just had to get more and more daring to even begin to score.

On that front, Tsukishima wasn't very hateable. He was a good teammate and opponent on the field. In fact, whenever Tsukishima was next to the net when he was on his team, Kageyama could relax a little with ease that he never really had with Hinata, because Tsukishima had his own mind-games and independent sense of play that let Kageyama focus on other parts of the court. The exact opposite of Hinata really, who demanded 110% of his attention any time he was active.

They had never been particularly close – Yamaguchi was always a buffer in between them if there were any sort of interaction involved. It would be a common case in group meet ups that Kageyama daydreamed in his own mental world of volleyball, and Tsukishima ignored the world by listening to music, or listening quietly in a corner. Asahi had once laughed and pointed out that 'in a certain sense, the two of you are quite similar sorts of people, aren't you?'

Kageyama's only reaction was to tilt his head in confusion at the comparison, while Tsukishima fumed at being compared to 'that idiot?'

After university, Tsukishima became an office worker.

On reflection, it was funny, what makes people bond with each other.

Tsukishima's cynical grin, reflected in a whiskey glass late on a weekday night. Tie loose over his shoulder in the darkness of a bar, far away from the buzz of the streets, the laughter of businessmen getting drunk with their superiors in izakaya. Muted jazz played from speakers hidden in velvet corners. And Kageyama feeling out of place in a t-shirt with some shorts, next to him, staring at a rainbow cocktail Hinata had recommended once because it was the only name he knew.

" _You_ wouldn't understand," Tsukishima scoffed, long fingers holding up the cup of whiskey, examining how the cut of the glass gleamed underneath the low lights. The thick gold of heavy liquor rolled against the inside as he stared past the glass in a sort of introspective frustration, disenchanted with something Kageyama hadn't pried into. He had a clue, though, of what it could've been.

And Kageyama, slightly uncomfortable, reached out for the own delicate stem of his drink, the paper umbrella cheerfully unbalancing and landing upside-down on the table.

"No," Kageyama replied, taking a sip before putting it down when he registered a tonne of sugar and fruit flavouring and seemingly nothing else. When silence stretched a little too long, there was suddenly a voice that sounded suspiciously like Sugawara telling him to finish his sentences. "No, I understand." Kageyama expanded.

It took a few seconds before Tsukishima's gold eyes turned to evaluate the man next to him.

"You are the most idiotically passionate person I've had the displeasure of meeting," Tsukishima slowly replied. "When did you even have time to have an existential crisis if you're up training from morning to night?"

Kageyama was a simple person. He'd freely admit that. He also didn't delve into deep stuff too often.

That didn't mean he was incapable of it.

"Games are simple," Kageyama shrugged, flicking the little paper umbrella in tiny circles. Volleyball was fun, was basically his future career, was basically his _life_ and he wouldn't have it any other way. However, it doesn't mean he'd been immune to the necessities of adulthood. "But everything outside isn't."

University. Studying. Money. Careers. Apartments and bills. Family.

Tsukishima blinked at him, before curling into a snicker. Then, with less of a smug curl to his usual smirk, he clinked his glass delicately against the curved rim of his cocktail.

"Pfft. I can drink to that."  


* * *

  
"Master Kei," a soft voice spoke behind him, and Tsukishima Kei turned from his seat on the windowsill to look at his head maid. She was sixty-five, with fifty of those years in dedicated service to his household. She was also one of the two people he knew he could trust, and since he's sent one of them away…

His thoughts flit briefly over his best friend, before going back to the situation at hand.

"Kana," Tsukishima replied, careful to keep his voice dry, his face disinterested. "The news?"

"Master Akiteru remains comatose," the maid replied, her hands gripped each other more tightly than normal, and Tsukishima chose to look out the window to allow the maid to reserve her pride. "His trial cannot wait any longer. If Master Akiteru is judged guilty, he will be executed in a week."

The view in front of his eyes, the great expanse of the urban streets that comprised Whiteriver stretched before his eyes. A perk, he supposed, of being filthy rich. His uncle was the King. He was from a long line of Dukes and Kings, Prime Ministers and Court Advisors. His family's name was renowned for its military might, its fairness, and its value of the people and progress. In certain matters, his name had as much weight as the King's.

By all rights, Tsukishima Kei should have been able to save his brother.

(But of course, none of that mattered if you were _thirteen_.)

"Pathetic," Tsukishima muttered to himself, a sardonic smile creeping onto his face.

"Master Kei," Kana tried to start, and as much as she'd practically been his second mother (mother, his heart pinched with pain), Tsukishima had always been a private person.

"Leave, Kana," he said flatly. "I will join you at noon, in my mother's solar. Arrange for departure, so that we arrive at noon in the Supreme Judicial Court to see if there's any discussion that can be done for my brother's trial to change their mind." They still had three days. He... he couldn't lose hope yet.

"Yes, Master Kei." Kana bowed as she left, and Tsukishima didn't leave his perch on the windowsill, gazing towards the city.

All his plans had been for naught.

It would take a miracle to save the last of his family now, and Tsukishima Kei (unlike his stupid, laughing, bright brother) had never believed much in miracles.  


* * *

  
"Are you alright, Kageyama?" Sugawara asked, face concerned while he unwrapped him from his position on his back. Kageyama had felt like a strange kind of swaddled leech, after Sugawara had asked him to climb onto his back and promptly wrapped his cloak around the two until Kageyama was solidly plastered to Sugawara's back like a misshapen backpack. After adjusting for a few seconds to the weight and gravity, Sugawara had lightly stepped onto the ground flew forwards.

As in.

He'd ran faster than the horse that they passed. They'd ran faster than that bird that had been flapping its wings as busily as it could. As in Sugawara had run faster than a car going at a decent speed.

( _"Oh my god, you're actually Superman,"_ Daichi said, his voice half-awed, half amused.)

( _"No, he's Naruto. Remember? Suga's a ninja,"_ Asahi replied.)

( _"Is this magic too?"_ Yamaguchi wondered. _"But when this Sugawara explained magic, it was all like, typical external elemental stuff right?"_ )

( _"Well… At least he's going really fast,"_ Yachi said. _"They'll reach your brother on time, Tsukishima!"_ )

( _"Hmm."_ )

Kageyama's face started burning when he tried to stick his head out of the wrapped cloak, both by the air burn and the strands of Sugawara's grey hair blowing into his eyes and just resolved to stick Sugawara's excessively warm back. At least being roasted was better than having his face blown off.

After an a few hours of running, Sugawara finally stopped.

"Phew! As you can see," Sugawara said, face kind and not even out of breath, "it's just faster travelling this way. Although it'll take a week by walking, and maybe four days by carriage, we'll get to Whiteriver by the tomorrow evening. I don't know if we'll make it on time, but I do hope—"

"…We will succeed."

Sugawara gave Kageyama a startled look. Kageyama only looked firmly back, before turning his head towards the horizon. In the distance, he could imagine the faint shadow of the white towers he'd spied on since he was five and hauled himself up the highest tree he could find, uncaring if he fell.

He'd said this to an opponent once.

_"The only time I'll feel despair is when I won't be able to play volleyball anymore."_

Volleyball was his passion, his work, his life. The electricity of the adrenaline that came with the court, the stress and impending exhilaration of a win. He and Hinata had been two sides of the same coin. Hinata had grown with none of the usual advantages for a volleyball player, and had crawled up to being a regular player through sheer, obsessive determination to win. In his heart, even if Hinata hadn't been able to join the professional volleyball circuit past university, he'd held Hinata with the greatest (hidden) respect.

The second time… he'd said it to Hinata.

_"If I can't play volleyball, I—"_

Hinata hadn't even let him finish the sentence before he got punched.

_"You idiot!"_ Hinata had yelled. _"Bakayama! Stupid! Dumbass!"_

To Kageyama's surprise, Hinata was near tears. As much as Hinata was emotional, Hinata, rarely, if ever, cried in front of people. So Kageyama just sat there on the pavement, one hand on his cheek as he stared at Hinata, whose silhouette had been backlit by the setting sun. He… he had actually been angry, eyes a vicious sort of hard and fists clenching as if he'd been gearing for another punch.

_"Even if you don't have volleyball anymore, which you still do you dumbass, don't you have_ us _?"_

Kageyama blinked at the road in front of them.

_Of course._

Tsukishima's annoyance and poorly hidden pride when his older brother showed up and hollered about how his little brother was the best came up in his mind, a loud figure at the side of some of their matches, always a smiling, encouraging presence near the level of Tanaka Saeko. Tsukishima Akiteru was a goofy, loud, and boastful older brother that Kei had obviously held with great esteem.

Execution, they had said. He wished he was in modern Japan.

"We will succeed in rescuing Tsukishima Akiteru," Kageyama said peacefully, near matter-of-fact. There was no other option. "Do you need more rest?" Kageyama asked Sugawara, who'd slowly capped the water skin he'd been drinking from.

"No," Sugawara said thoughtfully, eyes on Kageyama's face. "Let's get going."  


* * *

  
Two days had passed, with Tsukishima having rushed to all the people he could think of, talked, bribed, argued, discussed with everyone with even the remotest chance of influencing the trial with his brother, and every single one of his efforts had failed.

Tsukishima Kei ground his teeth. He didn't even know who had acted against their family in the first place and why they'd kept him unharmed. If he couldn't find the culprit two months before, when he had more resources and the crime was still recent, then he wouldn't be able to do so now.

"There is nothing you can do, Kei," his maternal uncle said sorrowfully, and Tsukishima Kei tried to control his anger as he glared up at the man in front of him.

He'd been surprised by his uncle's presence in his mother's solar. It didn't smell like her perfume anymore, now smelling like the smoke of the gentleman clubs that his uncle liked to visit.

"You know I've done everything I could to help," his uncle continued, his face a convincing picture of sorrow. Tsukishima rather wanted to rip that stylish moustache off his face.

"Uncle. The growing number of white hairs you have complements your new, tanned complexion. Ah, right," Tsukishima nonchalantly continued, sweeping his cloak around himself. He let Kana do the pin at his throat as he stared into his uncle's eyes.

"You got that tan while holidaying in the Calypsan Islands, didn't you? I understand, for this is a stressful time for us all. Relaxing is an important sport, as I intimately know, since I've been living in the house where my parents had been brutally murdered, while watching my brother struggle to survive while you were... away."

Tsukishima let the solar steep in vindictive silence for a few seconds.

He had never claimed to be _nice_.

"Kei, I," his uncle tried to interject then, pasting on what Tsukishima liked to call the Noble Smarmy Face.

Not that, of course, Tsukishima gave him much of a leeway. Tsukishima continued after giving a mild, mocking smile at him, continuing airily like his uncle hadn't spoken at all.

"It makes me glad that I entrusted one-hundred thousand gold coins for your personal use in furthering our quest for our family's justice. Seeing it used in your holiday to bring you emotional reprieve greatly bolsters my confidence in the loyalty and love you hold for the family and your deceased sister."

He ignored his uncle's wince.

"I-I just thought that it would be stupid to go on a wild-goose chase, nephew," his uncle stammered. "You should just accept that people, even someone as close as your brother, can have hidden dark motives."

Tsukishima's face twisted. 

Akiteru would _never_ —

"Why have you come, today, uncle?" Tsukishima asked after he watched his uncle squirm for a few more seconds, sweeping past the man and into the hallway. His mother's solar shouldn't be dirtied with someone like him. "As much as you hold power over the household now as my legal guardian, all monetarial assets are still mine to control. Do you need more coin to satisfy your…" Tsukishima let his eyes linger on a small lipstick mark lingering on his uncle's frilly collar, "quests?"

His uncle followed him out, his fashionably greased hair slicked back, jawline strong, skin clear. Although he'd flushed at Tsukishima's implication, he'd quickly regained his face and had doggedly followed him. It was easy enough to know he'd already used all his money. Looks really were deceiving, Tsukishima thought inside. At first glance, he looked like any other gentleman. He looked like his father, and Tsukishima quickly hid the pang of sadness that followed.

Three months ago, his father had celebrated his thirteenth birthday with a fond smile on his normally stern face, hand ruffling over his hair. Kei had tried to look like he didn't enjoy it, batting the hand away with a mulish look, since he'd grown up already, you know? "Congratulations on becoming a man, Kei," father had said. His father wasn't an incredibly burly man – his family had always tended towards the lean side – but his hand was big enough, strong enough, when they patted his shoulder. Mother gave him a secretive wink as she slid him a package, and Akiteru had given him a hard noogie. 'You're sprouting up like a beanpole! Don't worry, you'll become a knight yet!"

A week later, Father was found murdered in his bed, with his mother and brother nowhere to be found. Bits of his mother's corpse were then found in an underground magic shop, and his brother Akiteru was traced back from there, found in a coma in an enemy's safe-house.

There, knights had found irrevocable paper evidence that Akiteru had, had _arranged_ for the assassins to kill their parents for inheritance from a growing apprehension from his younger brother's growing talents that he wouldn't be heir anymore.

It was the most ridiculous thing Kei had ever heard. Anyone who knew Akiteru knew that he had never wanted to be heir, but did so out of filial love. He'd also sworn that he'd like to have the ability to support Kei in choosing whatever he wanted to do in life, be it inheriting the estate, becoming a knight, a scholar, or anything in life. Akiteru would have freely just given him the Duke's title if Kei had even spoken up about it.

His brother was so obviously framed that Kei wanted to just scream the truth at all the old men who walked over his head tutting that he needed evidence for his claims of Akiteru's innocence, don't you know that's how justice works, little boy?

Their family's knights, their branch of the military order in the kingdom's general corps, the official crown investigations, Tsukishima's own best friend, they all searched in the three month grace period that Akiteru had before his execution for the crimes of patricide, matricide and treason towards nobility and crown.

None of these groups had replies worth mentioning. Yamaguchi, the only other person he trusted, his best friend who had never let him down, had never replied back from his mission. Tsukishima feared the worst.

"Any issue that you have, uncle," Tsukishima stated blandly as he went down the stairs, "will have to wait. We can all agree we are concerned with Akiteru's fate, can't we?"

It wasn't a question.

"Yes, of course," his uncle said affably, quickly overtaking Tsukishima to lead the way as if it was his intention in the first place. "I can only be glad I am here to help ease your mind, nephew."

Tsukishima sneered at the back of his head.

Pathetic.

That night Tsukishima pretended to get ready for bed. After a sufficient amount of time he changed into a simple tunic and breeches and a hardy pair of boots. He hooked a sword to his belt, making sure the scabbard was easy to reach, before pulling a cloak on and punching a stone next to his fireplace three times in quick succession. Quickly going down the corridor that shimmered open, he stepped into the outskirts of his mother's begonia gardens.

If a miracle wasn't going to happen to save his brother, then he would _make_ one happen.

Tsukishima's eyes gleamed golden as he sneaked out of his estate. 

A few seconds later, a small hoot of an owl sounded. Six shadows billowed out of the shadows of the wall, turning into streaks of black light that chased the boy's back.  


* * *

  
They arrived at the Capital deeper into the night than they'd initially expected, half because of Sugawara's energy levels having decreased to a point where Kageyama insisted on slowing down, and secondly because there had been a surprising amount of guards roaming the outskirts of the city. After hiding themselves behind a pretty thick chimney on a random roof, Sugawara started to pull out their supplies from his bag.

"Here's your staff," Sugawara said, passing it over to Kageyama when he was sure Kageyama found the circulation in his legs again. While Kageyama shook his foot to get rid of the last of the pins and needles, Sugawara was busy slotting various things into his clothes. All of them looking various shades of deadly, Kageyama started to feel echoes of sympathy for anyone who tried to attack them when Sugawara finished kitting up by rolling a whole sheathe of needles around his arms and hopped to adjust to the weight.

"Sorry I couldn't teach you much magic, Kageyama," Sugawara apologised as he watched Kageyama tap his staff on the floor and experimentally push some magic into it. Some runes glowed blue momentarily before fading away. "You remember the other word? Fos means spark, and nero means…?"

"Water," Kageyama promptly responded.

Sugawara nodded. "Good. I don't use external magic at all and that's basically all I'm confident with teaching you. But from what Nekomata told me, your magic should be quite instinctual anyway. Quick pop quiz! Your blue magic means…?"

"My magic is actually water based," Kageyama answered. It was pretty convenient, really, that some god decided to colour code the energy in the world.

Sugawara beamed. "Good! Now, let's think about our options. An obvious one is that we show my seal to whoever is an authority about Akiteru's case." Kageyama examined the crest that had 'Nekomata' emblazoned in thick calligraphy on a red background, shaped vaguely like a cat's head. In the moonlight, the red and black bled into one another.

"Nekomata doesn't have as much influence in the west, but he's still pretty famous as a living legend. If I announce that I'm his apprentice and I have a message for the Tsukishima family, we can probably influence something or demand some information, or at least delay the trial. But this reveals my mission and my position to a lot of unknown factors, so I'm not so sure about this one." Sugawara tapped the crest, looking up at Kageyama, considering. "Secondly, though I don't really want to, we can say that you're a new sage, Kageyama, and they will bend over backwards to give you everything you want. But I think its way too early for you to go into politics, so this is personally a no-go."

Kageyama agreed. From the afternoon soaps that played in the background whenever he'd visited Saeko's house, politics seemed like it had a lot of stabbing, screaming ladies and dramatic swooning from suit-wearing guys over stuff like making farmland. On brief reflection, Kageyama thought he probably wasn't going to be that great at it.

Hmm. Any ideas?

( _"Prioritise information before we act?"_ Yachi provided. _"I know we're running out of time, but we don't even clearly know why they're executing Akiteru yet."_ )

( _"If we're running out of time, just sabotage the documents and office of wherever they're keeping evidence and documents while collecting the info!"_ Tanaka yelled. _"That's what a lot of baddies do in crime shows, and it usually works!"_ )

( _"…Contact other me," Tsukishima cut in. "If he's anything like me, he should have all the information, and then some."_ )

( _"When's the trial on? Maybe we could sabotage it there?"_ Suga mused. _"That way we don't even need to break Akiteru out if we can do it legally."_ )

( _"Worst case scenario, we just kill anyone who stops us from rescuing Akiteru and deal with the consequences later,"_ Ennoshita mused.)

There was a brief silence.

( _"Dude, that's cold,"_ Noya shivered. _"That's our boss for ya."_ )

When Kageyama shared all of that with Sugawara, he gave Kageyama an impressed smile. "You're pretty good at this, Kageyama! Yeah, info-gathering is our top priority. I would… probably shelve the massacreing for now. I actually like the idea of sabotaging the trial the best, since I was going to suggest it if you didn't… Hmm?"

Sugawara turned his head sharply to the left, as his eyes started to glow.

"Five… six signatures are chasing someone down in the noble district." Sugawara stood up, squinting to see better. They had settled on one of the taller roofs in the area, and the moonlight was strong enough to wash everything in silver.

("If I try my hardest?" Sugawara hummed one campfire night at Kageyama's question. "Well, I could probably spot a bird two kilometres away in strong moonlight if the air is clear.")

"Strange, nobles don't usually like being so obvious…" Sugawara continued murmuring, squinting to see better.

Kageyama had a strange feeling about all of this.

( _"I've read my fair share of novels, Kageyama,"_ Kinoshita said. _"You know, you should get your magic ready."_ Kinoshita's sharp grin came to mind. _"You're probably going to get dragged in."_ )

"Golden hair, golden eyes… Crap! That's a Tsukishima, Kageyama!"

Kageyama muffled a yelp when Sugawara scooped up Kageyama into a fireman's carry and jumped straight towards the conflict. They soared over a few roofs before Sugawara landed heavily on someone's flower garden, preparing to leap down into the small street where a small boy was frankly, going to get killed in the next few seconds. Sugawara gave a frantic mutter to him as he flung a dagger to divert a sneak attack. "Just send a wave of magic out when I put you down, okay Kageyama? You don't need to do anything else."

The next second, Kageyama was placed down next to a boy that kind of looked like Tsukishima, maybe… if he had glasses.

Business first though.

_Hey, can you emit a wave of magic?_ Kageyama asked the staff. Immediately, the staff exploded with light as the runes usually hidden in carving threw out waves and waves of blue magic that choked the whole street, drowning the air out until it reached the second floor windows of the stores shadowing the street, the shimmering blue mass disappearing somewhere around the corner. Immediately, all the enemies caught in the wave slowed down while Sugawara acted unimpeded, immediately chopping down three in the few breaths that it took Kageyama to check if he did okay.

Seeing everything clear, Kageyama turned around.

If it was strange to see a younger, wilder version of Sugawara, even though his gentle smile, the soft mop of grey hair and the heart-shaped face were still uncannily intact, then it was even odder to see Tsukishima as a kid like him; blonde hair in a short cut, face arranged that wasn't sour (for once), and eyes and hair that was more golden than he'd expected (or maybe that was the moonlight). Tsukishima didn't seem as scrawny as he'd been in his past life either, as he was wielding that heavy looking sword around like it was cardboard.

The weirdest bit was his lack of glasses though.

Kageyama had never seen Tsukishima without glasses. 

( _"Oh my gosh, it's a baby Tsukki! This brings back so many memories. You were so cute back then, Tsukki, what happened to you when you grew up?"_ Yamaguchi gushed.)

(" _Tch. Shut up, Yamaguchi._ ")

( _"Tsukishima, where's your glasses?!_ " Hinata squawked.)

"Hello," Kageyama said, careful to keep hold of the magic that he was spreading, stepping towards this baby version of Tsukishima. To his surprise, Tsukishima narrowed his eyes from his previously shocked expression, stepping back into a… guard position?

Narrowing his eyes, Kageyama gave a sigh. "I'm not an enemy," he said flatly. "We're here to save you."

But he didn't step any closer to him, and let his eyes wander towards Tsukishima's title instead.

Above Tsukishima's head, one word bled red.

[Avenger].

Kageyama frowned. That… wasn't good.  


* * *

  
"Congratulations!" Yamaguchi cheerfully clinked his glass against his glass of juice. "How does it feel to be accepted into Japan's preparatory camp for the national team?" Yamaguchi's eyebrows waggled at him across the rim of their glasses as they both took a sip. It was a celebratory party full of people that came from all sorts of life, as this wasn't just a volleyball party solely for the Asian Volleyball Confederation, but a sort of international all-sports sort of gathering. He had heard Saeko gush over some famous table-tennis player when they'd entered, and Tsukishima had grinned a slightly disturbing smile when he saw some old guy in a suit.

"I didn't know the boss of my boss liked sports," Tsukishima had murmured before pasting on a beatific, sparkling smile. He'd muttered an "excuse me," and promptly abandoned them all as he made a vague meandering beeline for the man.

After shaking hands with everyone his manager deemed important, Kageyama had promptly took a glass of juice and headed towards a remote corridor that lead to some fancy looking toilets. Every once in a while he would hear some choking sounds as someone heaved up their prayers and bad alcoholic choices to the porcelain goddess, but his seat was in an alcove just hidden around a small jut in the corridor, and this spot had the highest Wi-Fi reception he'd seen since he'd entered the place.

Pulling out his phone, he pulled up the video he hadn't finished watching. Frankly speaking, now that he was preparing for the international field, he had to broaden his field and understanding a lot more. He'd also agreed when Suga had emphasised the importance of learning at least rudimentary English for inevitable trips to the west.

…He'd never admit it, but he kind of regretted not paying attention in highschool now.

Tapping play, Kageyama's heart raced when the match between Italy and Poland started revving up on the screen, nearly making Kageyama's heart nearly stop beating at their plays. He soon found himself rearranging the tiny throw pillows on the couch into the corner and scooting himself into them, unlacing his fancy, uncomfortable (and frankly unhealthy for the feet) shoes and squinting at his phone's small screen as the announcer went over a set up shot in slow motion, explaining exactly what No.2 had done to trick the blockers and make the shot.

Frankly, he lost track of time, caught between articles of analysis, going back to re-watch a certain set up again and again, and then mimicking the motion with his own fingertips, wondering if he could do it better, faster, stronger. He'd just placed the phone back on his knees and had leant forward to track the, frankly speaking, white dot of a ball whizzing around the court when a dark shadow loomed over him, stepping deliberately into the alcove and blocking the light.

Kageyama looked up.

Oh. Yamaguchi.

"Put your shoes back on, Kageyama," Yamaguchi said as he peered in to look at his screen. "Ooh, Italy and…?"

"Poland," Kageyama replied shortly, putting his phone down and not looking forward to sticking his feet in the leather death trap his manager and Suga had both nodded in approval at. He pouted inside a little. _Hinata_ didn't need these kind of shoes for the fancy party he went to last week, why did he need it? "Since they dropped from second in the world rankings, they've been changing their tactics a little. This is more aggressive than I've ever seen them."

Efficiently tying his shoelaces together, he quickly pocketed his phone and followed Yamaguchi back into the hall.

"Your manager is going crazy trying to find you," Yamaguchi shared with a smile, "and haha, well, he drafted me into finding you. Apparently there's this sponsor who's a fan of your style and wants to greet you? Something like that. He's such a fan he even wants to meet Hinata." Yamaguchi chuckled.

"Hinata didn't come today though," Kageyama noted, thinking towards Hinata's utter devastation at finding out that he had a conference to attend to all the way in Hokkaido.

"It's a shame," Yamaguchi bobbed his head in agreement. "Hah, he called me in the middle of night to complain about it! I just slammed the phone back down, to be honest, though I felt a little bad about it afterwards, hehe…" Yamaguchi scrubbed the back of his head a little.

Thinking of Hinata's frustration made the corners of Kageyama's mouth tilt upwards.

Returning back to the more crowded mingling area, after greeting his fan and giving a selfie, a handshake, and receiving a promising avenue for sponsorship, Kageyama once again tried to turn away to find someplace to stand silently, or even maybe even disappear again (despite his manager's tears and desperate clinging telling him to _not do that please he needed his job just stick around he had one job just show your face dear god why do I have you as my athlete I want to change jobs_ ) he was confronted with another few of his fellow scouted candidates.

Kageyama was all too familiar with that sort of gaze. No matter how long ago it had been, the lesson from Kitagawa Daichi always stretched somewhere nervous behind his sternum when he met new people. Squaring himself, he wondered what he did wrong this time.

"Saw you disappear for a while," one of them shrugged, "only to come back and shake hands with what is basically the CEO of Nikke's Japan branch. Flocking to you, aren't they?"

"Expected of a genius, of course," the other said, smiling in… flattery?

Kageyama faltered. Did he… were they just congratulating him? They might just want to foster relations for their future training together, though if he remembered correctly, both of them were also setters. But Kageyama's best mentors, teachers, friends and role-models were setters. Suga, Oikawa, Kenma, all of them had been more than accommodating to him when he truly needed it. Kageyama mentally slapped himself. They were future teammates, he should have been less suspicious.

"Ah… thank you," Kageyama replied, bowing a little. "Let's work well together." 

He glanced upwards a little just in time to see them twitch.

"Are you mocking us?" The first one drew himself up, a full five centimetres taller than Kageyama, and it took all of a few seconds for Kageyama to realise he'd missed something, again, when a faint tutting sound echoed behind him.

"Hmm? What do we have here?"

Tsukishima's tall figure drew close to the group, face drew in a disdaining smirk. "Hmm, I should probably introduce myself to your… friends, Kageyama. How do you do, I'm Tsukishima Kei, nice to meet you!" Tsukishima bowed with that sparkling smile on his face, the one that made Kageyama instinctively annoyed, with hackles raised because that was his plotting face, and it was never a good sign. "I'm a marketing employee in Kinnon Corp, yeah _that_ megacorp you're thinking about, and we've been thinking of making a branch of sports wear! I was kindly elected to do some scouting and sponsorship at this party, haha!"

In a few long strides, Tsukishima had already reached the two, grasping their hands and shaking them quite invasively as he leaned in and spoke something in their ears that Kageyama couldn't hear over the hubbub of the general crowd.

The two, Kageyama noticed (he'd relaxed after Tsukishima suddenly appeared) suddenly turned the colour of a yogurt pasty and basically ran away. Kageyama wasn't really surprised, a lot of people ran away from Tsukishima after he started talking. Though this time... Kageyama examined Tsukishima, in his carefully tailored suit, looking at the direction of the two fled athletes with that sparkly smile on his face.

"Oh, leaving already? Bye bye, it was nice to meet you~" Tsukishima called, waving lazily from his wrist, before he turned back to Kageyama and his smile immediately melted into an exceptionally sour scowl. "Tch. You made me do something troublesome."

"I didn't make you do anything," Kageyama defended himself.

"Irrelevant," Tsukishima dismissed. "After doing all that on your behalf, now you _have_ to get onto the national team instead of those idiots, understood?"

"Of course," Kageyama responded. He was going to be the one selected to go on the court, no matter what.

"…Thanks, Tsukishima," Kageyama muttered after a very long pause, as they walked back towards the general direction of Yamaguchi together.

Tsukishima froze, and gave him a look of disgust as he rubbed his arms.

"Ugh. That was revolting."

Kageyama punched his arm a little harder than would be polite before Yamaguchi magically teleported himself across the room and smiled a little too wide as he stood in-between them, threatening them with a glass of pink punch on hand to _behave, boys_.

They both gave a 'tch' in response and fell silent.  


* * *

  
When all his magic had dissipated and Sugawara had whisked both of them away tucked under each arm like two sacks of potatoes (Kageyama, to be frank, was getting used to getting slung around by this version of Sugawara), they settled onto another random civilian's roof.

After all three of them caught their breath, Tsukishima immediately drew himself up and held his sword up and ready, feet firm.

"Who are you? And what do you want to do with me?"

Sugawara started beaming.

"Hello, you are Tsukishima Kei, right?"

Tsukishima, very slowly, nodded.

"Ah, well, I'm sure as a Ducal household you recognise this. It'll help you trust us, hopefully!"

Sugawara handed Nekomata's seal for towards Tsukishima, who loosened his guard to inspect it.

"…You guys come from the Great Sage, Nekomata of Chou?" Tsukishima asked, eyes wandering up towards the two, shoulders slumping as he started to relax.

"Yup! I'll introduce myself first. Nice to meet you, Tsukishima Kei. My name is Sugawara Koushi, and I am Nekomata's apprentice! Here is Kageyama Tobio, ignore the frown he always has on, he's actually a very nice kid," Sugawara gave his hair a fond ruffle. "Kageyama is an extremely talented magician-to-be who is travelling with me."

"Tsukishima Kei." Tsukishima replied shortly, sheathing his sword and doing some weird formal greeting where he put his right hand on his heart and bowed a little.

Wow. Kageyama stared. He really must be a noble.

Tsukishima seemed to flinch a little away from Kageyama's steadfast look and turned towards Sugawara. "Why have you come here, and found me?"

"Well…" Sugawara scratched his head. "You see, I was instructed by Nekomata to give your dad a letter." Reaching into his cloak, he soon brought out an envelope. On it was some scratchy handwriting addressed to [Duke Tsukishima]. "I've inspected it before, and well, I think Nekomata spelled it somehow to make it so that only your father will be able to open it," Sugawara continued cheerfully, before dipping a little into seriousness. "A few days ago, we heard of the news of murders and a trial involving your older brother, so we rushed here to understand the situation."

Tsukishima looked looked stoically at the letter in his hand.

"You're too late," Tsukishima replied emotionlessly, handing the letter back to Sugawara. "My father, Tsukishima Kokuyou, and my mother Kaguya have both been murdered by, people mostly suspect, my brother Akiteru. Right now, the title of Duke Tsukishima is still on Akiteru's shoulders, but he won't be able to help anyone right now, as he's in a coma and is on the way to execution for his crimes at the end of the week."

( _"There's no way my brother would ever kill our parents in any world,"_ Tsukishima immediately snarled in his head.)

Something didn't sit right in Kageyama's mind, seeing Tsukishima like that. The other boy was standing straight, and his face may have been the stiffest that he'd ever seen, but there was something to the way that he held himself that rubbed Kageyama the wrong way. Tsukishima should never look so vulnerable. It just _felt_ wrong.

"We'll help you find who framed Akiteru," Kageyama found himself saying. When Tsukishima faltered, quickly looking back at him as if startled, Kageyama found himself slightly annoyed. "That's what you were doing, weren't you?"

"…Yeah," Tsukishima replied, gaze re-evaluative. "I was. The retrial is sabotaged anyway, but with my status if I can get good evidence even a minute before they execute my brother, I'll be able to stop it."

"Since you've moved personally, I'm guessing you already have a good idea where some evidence is?" Sugawara asked. "We'll help you with it. We're both pretty strong, and it'll help you trust us, wouldn't it?"

"...You guys don't seem to want to kill me for now," Tsukishima replied, "and no-one would dare to lightly fake anything related to the Great Sage. So I will be frank with you," Tsukishima continued. "If I'm going to tell you anything about where I was going, I must tell you about my best friend. His name," Tsukishima murmured a little softer, "is Yamaguchi Tadashi. I sent him on a mission two months ago, but he hasn't come back and I fear the worst."

Everyone in his mind heaved a huge collective 'fuck'.  


* * *

  
Yamaguchi gulped as he squinted down the alley. The man he was following glanced backwards for a second, and Yamaguchi held his breath then, biting his lip as he clenched his hands into fists out of nervousness. In the dark of night-time, even his faulty enchantments should work.

The man in the alleyway narrowed his eyes at the dark pool of shadows between the lamp-lights, right where Yamaguchi was standing, but after a few more seconds, the man continued forging his way forward.

Yamaguchi didn't dare let out a sigh, just letting himself slowly shuffle forward with small, even steps, praying to all the deities in the world to not let him trip. He was doing this for Tsukki, and he had to get back by next week at the latest. Akiteru wasn't his best friend like Tsukki was (of course, but that was as given), but he had been nice to him, even when there was no reason to be kind to the small, clumsy servant of his little brother's. Tsukki idolised him, Yamaguchi wasn't bad at judging people either, and he knew Akiteru didn't murder his parents.

So he volunteered to help, and because Tsukki is the coolest person ever (even above Akiteru, whatever Tsukki thought), Tsukki trusted him without a thought.

And maybe Yamaguchi had something up his sleeves.

Not many people knew, and well. Actually, technically no-one knew except him and Tsukki, but uh. Before Yamaguchi came to Tsukki five years ago, he… might've come from an assassin's family?

Maybe?

(He just got really nervous around blood, okay? And violence. And maybe watching his mother spill some intestines on the floor when he was four had really redirected his prime goals from 'making his assassin family proud' to 'have the most boring life ever'.)

His parents were really nice about him wanting to forge a path for himself, so they pulled a few strings here and there, and he became Tsukki's personal servant even though he had no experience or skills at all. His parents were also really nice when he re-contacted them about all Akiteru's clearly rigged murder trial, and directed him here, to Hisho.

His parents were generally really nice, okay? Just not… when they were on missions. He felt he had to put it out there, because his dad liked to bake candy mascarpone bunnies in his free time, and his mother liked riding rodeo on the weekends after her weekly poetry reading, and every time he heard people badmouth assassins he just wanted to defend them because he was proud of his family! They're good people! And…!

Okay, he was getting off topic. Right. Tsukki's mission. Saving Akiteru.

The street was still dark when he finally reached the alleyway the man had gone into, only to freeze in fright when he realised that the guy had cloaked himself in some type of weird cloak and had perched there waiting for his tail, and oh thank the Seven, or Twelve, or Luck Gods or whatever that his grandda beat how to make invisibility enchantments into him. He was standing smackbang in the middle of the entrance of the alleyway, and the suspicious guy was looking straight through his forehead to the streetlight behind, eyes narrowed.

His heart. Yamaguchi's heart was not ready for this.

But! For the Tsukishimas! As a loyal vassal of the family, he had to persevere!

So he waited on bated breath for the next two minutes as the guy kept a look out, trying to keep his magic steady on his skin.

It was a shame that he had to come to Hisho for a mission like this though, Yamaguchi sighed in disappointment in his mind.

Hisho was a city he would probably want to live in when he was going to retire. Bakeries, cafés and sun-drenched décor. It was a city for the rich, and it showed it more than the Capital did, because Hisho wasn't much of a trading hub than a classy place for pilgrims to visit on their journey to visit the Holy Father and besides, Yamaguchi thought Tsukki might like some of the food they had here. His friend was always so picky with his food, it worried him sometimes, but here there was a lot of great looking food! He really had to remind himself to buy that bag of salted lemons for Tsukki…

The man finally stopped his vigil as he turned around, apparently satisfied that no-one was actually following him. Yamaguchi gave a small sigh of relief in his head (he wasn't so stupid to do it out loud, obviously. Grandda had trained him well) and followed.

They wound deeper into the more slummy area, as the alleyway ducked into a narrow street, which then looped into a small park which led to an even narrower, scummier street, and from there, Yamaguchi followed the man to one of the guard buildings built up against the wall of the city. As the man slipped inside, Yamaguchi hovered anxiously behind a tree, still gripping his invisibility charms in his hand. The enchantments would weaken soon.

Half an hour later, a man wearing a guard uniform stepped out, and Yamaguchi's eyes identified that, through the person's nose and eyebrows, they were… probably the person he followed here?

But just as he made to follow, the charms in his hand flared weakly. The enchantments were going to wear off soon.

Yamaguchi had to watch in dismay with a tight feeling around his heart when he had to watch the man in the guard uniform hurry into the night and out of sight.

He'd… he'd failed Tsukki.

After a few seconds, he shook his head and nailed a determined expression onto his face. No! He hadn't failed yet!

As Tsukki once said, 'you worry too much, Yamaguchi,' and Grandda had scolded, 'don't give up until you've coughed blood at least ten times', and he hadn't failed yet, he still had an option!

Yamaguchi eyed the guard house warily, but crept closer anyway, desperately praying his invisibility charms held until he'd sneaked in, at least.

The door opened with no creak at all, but inside was a guard with a monocle, and another with a really wild beard playing chess. Yamaguchi quickly passed them into a back room, just in the nick of time when the charms wore off.

Phew.

The back room was sweaty and kind of disgusting, really, and Yamaguchi picked his away across some type of oozing lump on the floor, skirted around a sweaty, holey worn uniform and into the next room.

There, Yamaguchi saw the weird cloak of the man he'd been chasing. He knew, because there, there was the weird sun emblem was stitched on the hem of the shoulder, and Yamaguchi nearly touched it, before drawing back.

He'd dealt with enough magic items enough to know that such a strong tingle on his fingertips before he even touched the thing was a bad sign.

So he searched blindly in the dark and found a hilt of something… probably a sword. It was heavy in his fingers, but he lifted it up with great effort anyway, and poked the cloak out of the way. The cloak fell to the floor, revealing a small box set carefully into a small, stone pedestal. What…?

He leaned closer, squinting at the symbols etched into the wood. Using the sword again, he carefully teased the box open, since it was obvious there was no lock. Metal locks usually tainted magic boxes, so it was no surprise.

Inside was a large, glowing book. Etched on it were symbols that made Yamaguchi suck in a harsh breath of air, but still feel like there was no air in the room at all.

Akiteru was stationed as the Knight captain here, he'd lead an investigation into suspicious disappearances in Hisho for two months before he went home for Tsukki's birthday celebration. Then the incident happened, and then he was suddenly accused and sentenced of murder, and right under Yamaguchi's nose was one of the most illegal magics of all.

Akiteru was right, Yamaguchi thought wildly, his eyes wide in the dark as he tried his best to stumble back, stumble to the exit, run wildly to the teleportation centre to go to the Capital to tell Tsukki and the palace immediately. There was something in Hisho that was—

The only warning Yamaguchi had was muted flash of silver light, reflected into a dark ceiling corner.

With a yelp, Yamaguchi dove forward, around the pedestal holding the book, and using it as a shield as he manoeuvred the sword in his hands into something more defensible.

"No matter what street urchin you are," his attacker said, (the guard with the monocle, the weak moonlight streaming through the window told him), "you've seen too much."

"Too much?" Yamaguchi didn't even stutter this time, his voice incredulous as he edged around the pedestal at the same time as the guard stepped sideways, keeping the man on the opposite side. "Th-this book is messing with time magic! How could, why is this here? Its very existence breaks one of the five great laws of magic!"

The man didn't reply, just set his jaw with a mutter of 'definitely seen too much'.

They'd nearly done a full rotation now, with the door nearly at Yamaguchi's back. If he could continue, he'd be able to bolt. He was pretty fast. One of his most promising traits back in the days before Tsukki. He could do it. His heart hammered in his chest, loud in his ears, rabbit fast.

But before Yamaguchi could even take a step back, a sword stabbed him through his back and Yamaguchi coughed in shock, blood dribbling down the front of his chest where the tip of the sword had pushed through.

"Sorry, kid," a gruff voice sounded in his ear, in the moment of clarity before the pain hit.

Oh. Right, Yamaguchi thought belatedly, staring downwards. There were two, weren't there?

The other person, the guard with the wild beard, hadn't bothered with pulling the sword out of Yamaguchi, letting him slowly keel forwards, right into the stone pedestal, over the book. His head hit the book, the runes blurring now, dark and etched. Yamaguchi's dying eyes were faced with the irreversible proof of Akiteru's innocence, and his inability to do anything about it.

His hands had mostly dropped all his invisibility charms, the ones he'd clutched from habit even when he was hauling the big sword around. Now his hands scrabbled at his chest, touching the metal in disbelief before laying weakly before him, covered in blood, resting over the illegal book.

He couldn't die here.

_He couldn't die here._

He had to tell Tsukki, he had to—

If only he could reverse his actions

If only he could go, go, _go back_ …

There were shouts around him then, as the book glowed red underneath his blood.

"Idiot, how could you let him make a blood offering?!" Monocle yelled at Beard, as they hurriedly tried to pull his numb body from the book but he felt stuck, his eyes were heavy, and he _hurt hurt hurt_ —

"I didn't realise the casket was open," Beard's voice cracked in nervousness. The world was starting to blur. It was blurring, and Yamaguchi was probably dying, with a sword through the chest and no family, nor friends _(he had to tell Tsukki…)_ to save him—

The next blink, Yamaguchi was rubbing his chest in confusion. Huh? He'd never had chest pains before. And why did he think the sky was supposed to be dark? It was still early in the morning yet!

"How much for this bag of salted lemons?" He asked cheerily, reaching for his pocket where Tsukki had given him a ridiculous amount of money. What type of thirteen year old needed so much anyway? Well, it fit his cover as a new servant at the Tsukishima's Hisho mansion anyway, and gave him some leeway in buying some souvenirs and supplies undercover while he watched the streets.

The vendor smiled at him when he saw his servant's clothing, probably thinking some noble liked salted lemons, and was about to tell him the price when there was a discrete tug to his clothing. When he turned around, a smartly clad woman in black was waiting behind him. Yamaguchi greeted her with a smile.

"Sorry, my master calls!" Yamaguchi bowed in apology to the vendor (not that the vendor was any sort of offended, because he understood nobles and their capricious ways) before following the girl into an alleyway.

One of his mother's agents. Only they wore black with blue stitching. His father preferred a muted olive green.

"Lord Tarou wants more sugared plums," she said in a slightly bored fashion, like any other servant sent on a pointless errand, supposedly giving him an additional list of shopping. Yamaguchi nodded, before looking at the list and vaguely walked off towards one of the less populated parks.

When he was there, he picked a more secluded bench, checked the area for people, and started decoding it. The fruits indicated which cypher to use, and the other items indicated the letters that needed to be shifted…

In the end, the long list decoded into, 'East gate. Cloaked. Sun on shoulder.'

Yamaguchi checked the message, before nodding in determination to himself, folding the square of paper small and eating it. Then he picked his way to Hisho's East gate as quickly as he could.

He, he couldn't afford to miss this lead! He had to back to the Capital by next week at the latest, to give Tsukki time to corroborate the evidence he would collect to free Akiteru…  


* * *

  
_Kei's collection of dinosaurs came from his elder brother. When Kei was four, the only thing Akiteru could buy was a vaguely cheap dinosaur toy on a super bargain sale for the end of financial year. Because Kei hugged that thing around everywhere he went for the next month, everyone then thought Kei loved dinosaurs, and correspondingly gave him dinosaur bedsheets, dinosaur themed bath soap, dinosaur plates, dinosaur shaped pasta, dinosaur stickers, outings to the dinosaur exhibit at the science museum... And the escalation never stopped. The remnants of that age has traces everywhere in the Tsukishima household._

_Yamaguchi's role model had always been Tsukishima, and that simply never changed throughout their life cycle even when they grew older and older and actually had lives to live that weren't just dedicated to school work and having a social life. The image of unflappability is the epitome of coolness in his book, though he does get called to babysit Tsukishima's team relations quite a bit when they're all gathered together..._

_Kageyama stands around blankly a lot when the conversation isn't about volleyball. It's not that he isn't listening, he just can't spare the attention to really care for it. He'd rather sleep to prepare for after school club practice, or imagine volleyball tactics when other people are comparing girls and marks and game-scores. The only time he spares energy to get invested in non-volleyball things is when it relates to one of his team-members. Kageyama is actually, if it's not Hinata, a surprisingly good listener in the way that he doesn't talk much, and calls you stupid at the right places. Don't go to Kageyama for tact though (he got none)._

_Sugawara sometimes wonders how he's always attached to such low EQ people and despairs. :D_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo, finished research! Now onwards into finding a job and finally finishing these chapters.  
> I swear, half the time I finish the chapter and then I take a week to fix everything in archive format, hah. Thanks for the comments on the last chapter and anyone here for being patient ^^


	6. Interlude~ The Inexplicable Longing of Hinata Shouyou

Most would look at Hinata and describe him as cheerful, sociable, funny, happy, easily moved, a little idiotic, and a genuinely good guy. He dicked around with any of his friends, ogled and got easily flustered with girls. He tip-toed every health test that needed to test his height, loved to eat sweet things, and without fail, got dizzy from overusing his brain whenever there was a looming math test. Most people saw Hinata and marvelled over his natural athleticism, eagerness, and friendly smile.

The first time Kageyama met Hinata…

Kageyama looked at him, and saw wasted potential.

Because Hinata burned with a bright, vicious vein of ambition to prove himself, to defy expectations, do what people thought impossible and show his achievements to every face that would ever doubt him. Hinata owned the deepest, most instinctual desire to _win_.

Kageyama had loved volleyball because he had been naturally good at it. He loved how the ball went wherever it told it to, he loved knowing how scenarios that he thought in his head would succeed (if other people did their _jobs_ ) and he loved testing his abilities against other people and winning, knowing, competing.

Hinata, despite not knowing how to block, or throw, or roll, or smash, lacking any volleyball technique and relying on his base abilities. Despite never even playing volleyball before he paused in front of an electronics store—

Hinata saw the Small Giant of Karasuno, and thought

_I want to be that_

To surpass the wall of his limits, to gain advantage over people naturally born with gifts, in a sport where height, something he couldn't control, held all the advantage –

And to win, despite all odds. That was why Hinata played, for burning, visceral _equality_ in a sport that no-one told him he was allowed to love and succeed in.

So Hinata chased. Chased, and chased, and chased, further, more driven, more enthusiastic than many others. After the Small Giant. After the view from the top. After other players, their skills only driving him on for _more more more more_

Kageyama would know.

After his first match with Hinata in middle school, Hinata had then, forever more, painted a large target sign on his back. No matter if they were on the same team, Kageyama had existed as his number one rival, the number one partner, the strongest, highest, most difficult wall to climb… But also paradoxically existed as the one person who enabled him to run the most free and uninhibited. Hinata placed the most expectations on Kageyama, foisted him on the highest pedestal, saw him through rose-tinted, volleyball shaped goggles, demanding him to win, yelling that he'd catch up, _so run while you still can_.

Hinata chased his back, uncaring of his attitudes, insecurity, mood-swings and arrogance, him being dethroned and scorned, because who cared about all of that when he played well?

Hinata's unwavering belief in Kageyama, gradually, turned into the first source of faith for himself after he was abandoned.

So Hinata chased, and Kageyama ran. Ran as quickly as he could, ran as he always had run, pushing to his utmost, striving for the win. But it was freeing, so freeing when he knew that there was someone who understood the race to the top with his own driven, unexplainable, single-minded wavelength. For he and Hinata had been similar in all the ways that mattered.

He had been waiting, just as long as Hinata, for their race to truly begin.

Shouyou.

Not a brother, not a singular love. But all-encompassing, all the same.

Was the word _friend_ enough to cover that?

It was a question that he'd never answered.  


* * *

  
"Kojiiiii," Hinata complained, linking his hands behind his head as he stared beyond the forest canopy. In the distance, the bright rays of the morning sun shone an inviting shade of white-blue that made him want to laugh, made his feet itch to run and run and run, to the edge of the island, over the sea and fly into the air. But… He side-eyed his friend, feeling _bored bored bored._ "You're taking _foreveeer._ Are you done yet?" Life was boring, his village was boring, and his long awaited break (he'd rushed his chores and skinned a knee for his efforts, you know?) was now boring too, because Koji couldn't even finish the _one_ task that his teacher had given him yesterday!

Koji just shrugged and continued to squint at the tree as he muttered weird incantations under his breath.

Hinata resisted a pout, scrunched his nose up, and tried to be the bigger man. His ma was always on about that. Being the bigger person and stuff.

Not that, you know, it was easy when certain people were _ignoring him_.

Koji was sun-dappled and partially burnt from the sun, because he'd been sitting in the same spot for far too long. Even as Hinata watched, Koji continued his stupid stare-down with the tree he was trying to talk to. As a trainee-monk, he could hear the voices of trees. And, and that sounded great and all, but Hinata had heard Koji complain about what trees gossip about too much to want hear plant voices. Apparently all they talk about was how pretty their leaves were or boast about who had more sunshine, _constantly_ , because trees never sleep.

(Hinata shivered. That actually sounded quite nightmarish. Imagine sneaking down towards the toilet and hearing a random whisper from everywhere around you! Hinata would prefer to stay away from such ghostly things, thank you very much).

And monk-hood was very hard, Hinata understood, _really he did okay,_ it's just that Koji and Yukitaka had promised to go with him to their tree, and… they were all stuck here because Koji couldn't do his job right!

Bleh. Hinata made a face.

"Koji, what's your task anyway?" Hinata asked, swinging his legs and tracing the weathered bark of the tree he was sitting on. It was a nice tree. Hinata patted it.

"My teacher is a dumbass who wants a complete list of all the bugs that lives in this tree in front of me," Koji managed to grunt out. "I didn't think it'd take this long. The tree is being really annoying."

Yukitaka, who'd mainly been silent because a shaman was never idle, had been counting the strands of monkey butt fur in peace on the side, deciding to peace-keep a little.

"Maybe you can let us all hear, so that Hinata can understand what you're going through?" Yukitaka grinned, carefully putting the monkey fur back into the pocket of his bag, drawing out a handful of scarab beetle shells to sort instead. Blues had to go with yellow, he absently noted. "You know Hinata's deaf to that kind of stuff."

Koji sighed, before drawing a sigil onto the tree, before gesturing impatiently for Hinata's hand. And suddenly Hinata could hear a girl's voice that he heard in his brain instead of like, through his ears.

Man, that never stopped being creepy. Having Yukitaka in his head sometimes was weird enough, but thinking that trees sometimes had voices too…

Well, that was a monk's job, wasn't it? Making sure trees had their rights and all. Hinata was just glad he didn't born with the talent, because he didn't have the head for it, to be honest.

"Koji, Koji, Koji, Koji," the tree sang in a light airy laugh, and a little girl's voice danced around his head. The tree Koji was sitting in front of was relatively new, after all. Just thirty years old. "Koji, Koji, Koji is stuuupid, he can't answeeer a single riddle can heeee? If you don't, I won't tell you your fifty-fifth bug you knooow?"

Wow. Hinata blinked, rocking back on the limb a little. That tree sounded like all the girls Natsu, the most adorable little sister a brother could have ever, hated. Natsu had the shortest temper sometimes, it was hilarious, and the last time Natsu had a birthday party they'd invited Mina just for kicks, and Natsu had been huffy for weeks.

"SHUT UP, WOMAN! LET ME THINK!" Koji yelled, blocking his ears with his hands. Since Koji had only drawn the sigil on the girl's tree, Hinata could only hear her voice. But Koji heard all the trees at all times and…

"Huh, Koji," Hinata asked randomly. "How do you sleep with all those voices talking all the time?"

"You tune them out," Koji said with a very pointed glare in his direction. Okay. Hinata would be supportive. With a sigh, he flomped back onto his tree.

Kouji was flimsy monk who couldn't do anything with inner qi anyway, he huffed. Hinata's qi boosts were so much more awesome!

"I'll give you a hint. It starts b and is two words and ends with d and it's what you are to meeee!"

Hinata watched in fascination as Koji reluctantly answered. "Best friend?" His ears burning as his annoyance died.

"Yeah! Dumby Koji answered!" The tree laughed in their heads as her leaves shivered and rained a few leaves and a beetle onto his hand. "That's another one. It's blue and shiny and humans have a weird name for it that starts with… T!"

Another riddle?

"Ugh, Kojiiiiiiii," Hinata rolled himself off the branch and onto another one with some incredibly awkward acrobatics. "Just bludge your assignment or something, you teacher doesn't care! Old Genta's probably drinking!"

"I care," Koji replied shortly, rolling his shoulders with a grimace. "Just because he doesn't want to teach me doesn't mean I don't wanna learn, okay? Not everyone has exercises that just involve jumping around." He eyed the tree and her blatant, childish expectation and sighed. "Sorry Hinata," Koji admitted, scratching his hair. "Negotiating is taking a lot more time than I thought it would. You should go to our tree first? I'm not great at talking, you know that. This will take a while."

At Koji's apologetic grimace, Hinata paused before laughing, scratching the back of his head.

"Right, I sometimes forget that you're a dumbass," Hinata teased, letting the slightly offended look wash away his annoyance. Having cheered up, Hinata glanced up at the sky. The day was… surprisingly pleasant! That makes it more fun! Grinning, Hinata sprang up to stand on his branch again. He couldn't help it, he had the jitters, okay, and started bouncing on his heels and slowly let his disappointment go with every bounce. Then he stared longingly at the sky. "Yukitaka, let's go?"

Yukitaka, always glad to have a lazy afternoon lolling about in a shady patch of grass, gave Hinata an apologetic smile over his collection of beetle shells.

"Sorry, Hinata! Next time?"

Hinata bit his lips. "But, but, but Yukitaka, you promised we'd go to the tree this afternoon!"

When Yukitaka shrugged lazily against the grass, Hinata sighed, before glancing at the sky and realising he should start moving now. Sticking his tongue out at the both of them, he leapt to another tree to prepare his own brand of qi. Nothing as fancy as communing with trees or evoking the spirits of the dead, of course, but still amazing and all _his_.

It always took a few seconds for him to activate any deeper layers of qi.

Physical qi was all about awareness, surprisingly enough, so any novice like Hinata had to focus a little before things could happen much. So Hinata stood there, orange hair still, eyes closed, breathing deep. His qi was always coiled around his heart and backbone when he wasn't using it, and when he tugged on it to shift it around his veins, his skin started to glow a slight orange. A breath in. Tugged a strand of orange light into fingers and out. To his toes. To the tips of his hair.

He cracked his knuckles.

Using that as momentum to push the qi around his body, Hinata's hearing sharpened to the point he could hear the brush of air inside Koji's mouth as he breathed in, the hum of his vocal chords that hadn't been manipulated into words yet, and the faint sloshing of beetle juice in Yukitaka's bag. His muscles tightened until the jitters of energy smoothed into a thrum that became near unbearable. The next time he blinked, he spotted an eagle's nest up the volcano's crag a mile away, the individual flecks of dead bark and twigs clear in stark detail. His toes curled on the branch of the tree.

His qi reflected him, his intentions, and right now he wanted to _move_.

With a goodbye yell at his friends (Yukitaka happily flicking through beetle shells while Koji pleaded the tree for a hint), Hinata took a leap forward onto a stronger tree branch, jumping up from there. Leaves streaked past him, thin branches avoided, as he ran up the trunk and sank straight into the sky. In the moments before he fell again, he regarded the whole of the forest he lived in beautiful detail, each tree and leaf clear to him stretched for miles upon miles, before distantly, the glitter of the sea.

Then he fell back into the shadows of the trees, landing on a bough as he leaped forward, gleeful as the air cut clean around him. He worked towards the lower, stronger boughs, as his feet led him deep into the forest to their tree, the one that the three of them had found when they'd gotten lost once, and promptly decided as their hideout.

When he was eight, it took him fifteen minutes, Koji thirty-two, and Yukitaka forty-four minutes to get to the hideout. Now, Koji improved a little to twenty-eight, Yukitaka was still at forty(ish) if he really pushed himself (his qi wasn't inclined to the physical at all), and Hinata could get there in three minutes even while lugging Yukitaka over his shoulder.

Now it took him two, alone, and he wasn't even rushing or anything.

He loved the world in speed – a blur that flashed by in a crisp detail that only the strain of his qi could catch. Using last minute's adrenaline to swing around this branch, to push his feet vertically onto a trunk and run, knowing gravity wouldn't catch him until he let it—it felt like the world was limitless, like something was beyond his small village if he just let himself continue to fly, faster and faster, out of his island, across the sea, to somewhere unknown and exciting.

When he got close to their tree hideout though, he let his speed bleed off, letting the qi fizzle out into a tree and felt it sigh a thank you in its shiver of leaves as Hinata did his last big leap and stopped right at the crest.

Hinata started dropping towards the ground, and on his way watched some grubs through a gap in the trunk as he walked down a particularly thick bough, the path ingrained in him after four years of repetition. Dappled sunlight, weak from winter, stretched its yellow limbs towards him and Hinata reached out, trying to grasp it back with a small laugh.

The tree was only half a minute away when a buzz, a pain that started near his left ear and exited in a streak of pain made Hinata wince before blinking in confusion.

Huh? Did he strain his qi too much?

Hinata flexed the whirl of qi around his heart with a small poke to his chest. Nup.

Weirdest headache ever.

He was still trying to figure it out, brows furrowed in confusion as he jumped down from the tree and sank his bare feet into the forest mulch, dank shade making him suddenly cold as he headed towards the small lake of water, and the tree that grew out of its seemingly fathomless depths.

The water was as clear as usual today, and Hinata didn't hesitate to jump in, opening his eyes to stare into the depths that bled slowly from white-clear water shadows to a midnight black that was impenetrable. Once, Yukitaka had dared Koji and Hinata to swim to the bottom of the lake, but even Hinata, at maximum boost, with his qi extending his lung capacity to fifteen minutes, couldn't reach the bottom of the roots.

But he liked diving in it anyway.

The water coursed over his head as he swam towards the tree, blinked a few times to get used to the small glimmers of light that the water allowed through. The great tree that grew from the fathomless lake had roots that just curled up from the depths, down, and down, and down. Within a few strong kicks, he reached the edge of the tree, and underwater, the great twines of roots were slippery with green algae and only grew thicker and thicker in the depths that grew too harsh for even Hinata to bear.

This tree, more than anything in his life, felt like an adventure, something great and exciting and unknown! No-one in the village knew anything about the bottomless lake when they asked but just seeing it (and maybe exploring whenever he had the chance with Yukitaka and Koji) was the most exciting thing in the world.

But exploring deeper would need to be left for another time – Yukitaka was the only one who could manifest light without oxygen and fuel, and Hinata mentally stuck his tongue out at Koji again, who'd made them miss out on another adventure just because he couldn't answer riddles!

So instead of exploring alone, Hinata hauled himself out of the water and onto a thick root, quickly wringing out his clothes before shading his eyes as he glanced upwards. The tree trunk was thick and whorled, but the sheer size of it made it seem like a curved, fat, cylindrical cliff, and their hideout was a carved out hole half way up the tree just… there!

Hinata cracked his knuckles, letting the orange warmth of his qi seep into his legs before eagerly leaping upwards, reaching their cozy nook in a leap, and a quick catch of the fingers.

They'd sneaked cushions in there, and even a few old blankets that they'd washed and tried their hardest to mend (which made them extremely ugly and warped, but still so comfortable!) and it was the best place to take an afternoon nap when there wasn't anything else to do for the rest of the day. They'd carved a small cabinet at the back of their tree-cave, and at the bottom, Yukitaka had rigged a small cloth bag with rope that dipped into the water whenever they wanted to store cool drinks.

Hinata always felt a frission of pride whenever he saw their hideout, a little birdbeat of mischievous glee that they'd sneaked a little of themselves into such a mysterious place. Like they were part of that adventure, away from the village and its homework, training, and chores.

Hinata climbed in eagerly, already reaching for one of the towels they'd stacked at the edge of their hideout to dry his hair when a dry voice broke the calm. An tiny gnarled crone tapped her wizened staff to the floor as she hauled herself up. "Shouyou," she said, extremely dry. "I knew you'd be here soon."

Hinata blinked comically, before he promptly squawked a panicked _'Granny Kobume?!'_ and fell backwards out of the hollow to plummet towards the water. The old lady listened with a serene face as she heard the familiar sounds of Hinata's alarmed squawking – after all, she was his teacher.

"Granny Kobume!" Hinata shouted with surprise as he bounded straight back up the tree, none the worse for wear. "H-H-How did you get in here? Why do you like scaring me so much? Are you here to scold me? Did I do anything wrong? Oh no, you found out about the bucket thing, didn't you?"

Babbling, Hinata hauled himself inside and plopped himself onto a cushion as he closed his eyes in anticipation of retribution for the bucket. It wasn't even his fault, to be honest. He just kind of, you know, tripped with a handful of food, and maybe some of it landed in the bucket of ritual water, and maaaaybe he just picked it up tossed it over her vegetables, and maybe they mutated because of that, and maybe Uncle Hi's food poisoning came from that…

"Shouyou," Kobume merely rolled her eyes. "You're twelve. Even if I scare you, you're not gonna get a heart attack. And what's that about a bucket, hmm?"

Hinata clapped his hand over his mouth so that he didn't accidentally babble anything more about the bucket thing because he was still safe hahahaha bucket? What bucket?

"This is a good hollow though," Kobume continued, whacking her cane into the hollow of the tree. "It's pretty impressive, considering how special this tree is. It wouldn't have allowed you to do this if it didn't like you," Kobume eyed her student through one, sagging eyelid and shook her head in disappointment. "Heaven knows why."

Hinata suppressed an indignant squawk and swallowed.

"Wh-what are you here for, Granny?" Hinata asked tentatively.

"Have some spirit, boy," Kobume complained, "you always go on and on about the adventures you're going to have, but you have the courage of a fainted rabbit." Rolling her eyes, she slowly moved towards the entrance, bypassing Hinata with the overwhelming scent of stale mothballs.

"Well, you know how I know some divine magic because I was a delusional girl back in the day and ate one too many sacred mushrooms?" Kobume drawled, peeking up at the large, towering branches of the tree.

"Uh-huh?" Hinata nodded, who had already started to rock on his cushion because he couldn't stay still for his life. "Yeah, but didn't you get kicked out of priestesshood because you got too high or some— Ow!"

"Shut up! I'm your teacher!"

Hinata obediently shrank back down and pretended that he was a mushroom, innocently growing in this corner of the tree hollow.

Kobume nodded her wrinkly face in satisfaction at Hinata's compliance before she rose up. "Come. Follow me. This hollow you made lacks class," and there was this sniff and another waft of mothballs as a series of cracks and pops sounded from her skeleton, power rising off her body.

"Granny," Hinata groaned, trotting after her as she power-jumped twenty metres up to land on a ridge of tree bark, before jumping around the huge curve of the tree (he quickly flared his Boost and did the same), "our cave has so much class! Me and Yukitaka and Koji worked really hard on it you know?"

He duly followed though, as Kobume continued jumping up, going around in zigzags that left the canopy of the forest long ago, and continued up to the very tip of the tree, the highest he'd ever been. He had a few moments of standing at the topmost branch of the large tree, tempted to reach out towards the sky (so close he could nearly touch) before his teacher did one of the old people harrumphs that disparaged any and all cheer in the world and jumped… in?

"Woah," Hinata's eyes widened in awe as he followed the hunched back of his teacher, as a large ledge of bark at the top of the tree tipped into a large cave and never stopped, leading to a cave he'd never ever noticed. His insides tingled with excitement, as he started bouncing at the thought of adventure.

Inside was another pseudo-doorway, where inside that small cave was another corridor that was pitch black, as Hinata squeezed himself in and blocked the rays of light. His head nearly touched the ceiling of the strands of wood fibres that hung down from the ceiling like spider webs.

Kobume, who had been silent the whole time ignoring Hinata's oohs and aahs, raised an old wrinkly hand, making her palm glow blue.

"Come, you doof child," Kobume said with kindness that Hinata knew existed, deep, deep, deep inside, "I saw a… well, there's a truth you need to see here…" she trailed off, wrinkly face conflicted before snapping back into sternness. "And there are things that you need to see that I have hid from you."

Hinata blinked eyes that were still wide from inspecting this secret-secret cave that he'd never known about (since if he'd known, he would never have bothered digging out that cave hideout. He would've just lugged Yukitaka and Koji here, they'd wasted so much time!)

"Huh? Granny, what do you mean hide?"

Kobume only lead him through the corridor, and as the little light that had squeezed through the small opening faded, Hinata started getting the creeps.

N-not that he was scared or anything, duh!

…but maybe it was a little, um, creepy.

Maybe.

While he was trying to find anything to distract himself with (Granny would mock him for the rest of his life if he even tried to grab the back of her shirt for support), he realised the bark beneath his feet suddenly cooled, before becoming noticeably moist and wet.

In two steps, water was up to his ankles.

Kobume abruptly stopped in front of him.

"Shouyou, dive," she ordered. "This pool leads to the very bottom—"

Hinata's eyes could not boggle any more. If they did, his eyeballs would probably fall out of his eye sockets. Even his fear got washed away when sometimes promised to wash away the boredom.

Was this... adventure he smelt?

"No worries, granny!" Hinata said with an enthusiastic grin, stripping his shoes and most of his clothing off, "leave diving into cool pools to me!"

And with a flare of his Boost, he was gone.

Kobume just stared at the little trail of bubbles Hinata left and snorted.

"Idiot. He didn't even let me tell him about the water dragon."  


* * *

  
Okay, so this might not be what Hinata was expecting when he took a dive in a mysterious pool of water in the middle of a magically huge tree that his granny-teacher lead him to.

Nah, he would totally believe granny would do something like this.

"PFBBBTHSH!" Hinata screamed into the water, white bubbles exploding in front of his face as he immediately started kicking upwards, his qi going slightly haywire as he strained his muscles to haul himself out of the tree and hopefully away from that hugeass gigantic creature that he'd, maybe, kinda, okay he totally did, kick the eyeball of. Quite hard. His foot had even skid on the surface before he bounced backwards, and the whole thing swivelled to follow him.

Hinata blubbered inside.

Accidentally! He didn't really notice it was an eyeball!

When he felt something cold winding around his ankle, he started yelling panicked apologies to whatever monster, creature or deity he just kicked.

" _I'M SORRY!_ " His mind screamed in a last ditch effort as the thing around his ankle dragged him lower, and lower, and lower…

His lungs screamed for air since he wasted it all on screaming.

…This was worse than that time Yukitaka disappeared on that horror-hunt thing the adults set-up last year! He thought that was fear!

 _'Be still, little squirmy orange one,"_ a voice squirmed into his mind.

Even while he was screaming and struggling, and maybe slowly dying from oxygen, a little part of Hinata's brain protested at being called little. Even short people can do amazing things!

 _'I know, small human. Be still.'_ The voice swelled again his mind, even as a bubble of air popped around his head. Hinata blinked in surprise as he took a huge, desperate breath.

So, so, so it wasn't going to kill him? Or eat him or anything?

 _'I am not a creature of metal, human. I am of water, and I only need water. The contaminated water in your veins is useless to me,'_ it replied to his thoughts, and man, mind-reading was actually kind of creepy when it wasn't Yukitaka doing it, huh…

After a few deep breaths, his mind settled enough for him to realise wait, he hadn't actually seen whatever the thing he was talking to was yet, so he swivelled his head even as the thing around his ankle let go. Twisting around, he was greeted by a huge snout, the thing around his ankle apparently the thing's tongue. He was about the size of the creature's pupil, maybe, a creature of river-currents and water qi, the swirl of its eyes a funnel like a whirlpool.

Hinata tried not to gawk. He truly did. Natsu had hit him too many times for gawking at merchant wares, because they then thought Hinata had money to buy it which was... hahaha. _No._ Anyway, it got merchants all disgruntled, and Natsu annoyed because that meant she couldn't use her cute kid eyes to get more discounts...

Not that, Hinata hysterically thought, discounts were relevant to this situation.

Yeah.

That.

Because, haha. Dragon.

The river dragon-creature blinked, and Hinata saw something like skin covering its eyes – a small sheen of transparent scales. _'I am not so easily offended by your habits, human, especially for one I've been waiting for such a long time,"_ the creature replied with a surprising amount of humour.

Hinata tried to be nonchalant as he glanced at the thing's (' _Guardian'_ , it rumbled in his head) snout, which promptly opened to reveal a gaping maw of rows and rows of… absolutely terrifying teeth. Hinata blinked rapidly to not faint.

"Why do you need so many teeth if you don't eat people?" Hinata asked weakly, trying to ignore the fact that he was still wrapped in this thing's magical tongue, before his eyes widened in realisation. "Oh, oh no, you're one of those stories, aren't you? Those ones where they make you feel safe and then start roasting you alive, or dig you into the ground, or, or," and Hinata's panicked screaming in his brain for the stupid granny who sent him in here in the first place TO SAVE HIM PLEASE was disturbed by a warm chuckle.

_'Come, funny human. Hero you may not be yet, but you can only start your destiny if I give you one of the treasures I guard.'_

The water bubble around Hinata's head moved, and forced his head to move with it. It felt kind of like glass, actually, since his head kept knocking on the back of the bubble kinda painfully, really, and uh.

"…My mother told me not to trust strangers," Hinata said, in his last ditch attempt to escape whatever this was, and the Guardian only laughed again.

_'I have watched your village since the beginning of time. I have watched you since you were born. Little one, be calm.'_

Hinata tried his best to contain the thought that immediately popped out of his head.

_'Hmm? How interesting, I do not understand your word. Pray tell, what is a stalker?'_

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Hinata insisted, before starting to babble about how gloomy and dark the place they were going down into was. Even the gaps of the tree roots showed no light now – probably because they were way underneath the lake by now, the only glow the soft white shimmer of the Guardian's long, long line of spine and ribs.

His was sat on the middle part of the Guardian's sinuous body, as it slowly glided down, and down, and down. The water became colder and colder, dark and heavy, and if it had been anyone but Hinata, who had just pushed his qi to such lengths he'd started to glow for warmth, Hinata thought they'd probably have died already. The weight of the water alone, the lost sight of the glimmers of the surface, gave rise to Hinata calming down, actually. The dragon did nothing except for swim downwards in a curling spiral within the tree's roots, which were lit up once in a while by the Guardian's body.

It was certainly an experience he wasn't expecting to have this morning, an extremely small part of Hinata reflected. All the rest was dedicated to asking highly productive questions of the Guardian, as his teacher would be proud to notice. The dragon answered it all surprising amiability, for a creature with so many sharp teeth.

Hinata quickly forgot about being nervous.

"You've lived here for ten-thousand years?" Hinata squawked, the air bubble having encased his whole body after the Guardian realised when Hinata had finally felt his bones creak from the water pressure. "That's so depressing!"

 _'Why?'_ The Guardian humoured, even as it gave a disapproving hum when Hinata tried to see if he could touch its spine through some watery-jelly-like flesh. Since it didn't really have scales on its body it seemed just like a simple task of him dipping his hand into a transparent version of his little sister's baking dough, really…

"You must get lonely! I would!" He bounced a little, poking the seemingly solid surface of the air bubble instead.

 _'You are human, I am not,'_ the Guardian easily replied, one of its whirlpool eyes swivelling impossibly to stare at Hinata dead on. _'But we are here. Wait, little wriggly one,'_ it said as it settled down onto a dark rock floor, and its skeleton gradually dimmed its lights.

Total darkness.

So he cracked a knuckle, blinked hard, and looked.

His vision amped up the shadows, but also revealed all those weird black shapes that had been creepy and dangerous looking were just humongous tree roots, the gaps between them letting him see the vague water currents that flowed beyond the Guardian's lair. He was currently seated on a clean circle of rock as big as his village, really, with loads of cool carvings etched into it. Sitting near the middle, he could see the roots on all sides anchored into the rock, making a protective cage around it all.

Wait, right in the middle, the Guardian's tail was curled in huge loops around something. Was that…

Hinata squinted. Why was there a stone house all the way down here? Human-sized too, with missing doors and windows, all cracked and lonely-looking.

Before Hinata could move to explore it, the Guardian finished its business and turned its head back to Hinata.

 _'This is yours if you wish it, tiny hero,'_ the Guardian suddenly echoed underneath him, and with his enhanced vision, Hinata saw the Guardian's tongue that had been extended towards some dark shadowy corner came back with something curled in it. A little glimmer of something practically dainty in comparison to its large size.

However, the tongue kept it out of reach when he leaned in and tried to grab it. Hinata pouted and looked back at the one eye the Guardian had kept on him, the whirlpool eye swirling a little slower, maybe.

"What is it?" Hinata said, trying to keep his bouncing to a minimum as he squinted as best as he could.

_'Destiny.'_

When the tongue slowly unfurled, Hinata quickly retracted his eye's Boost because ow, that hurt. The mirror itself shone like a palm-sized sun when presented to him, a small thing that radiated energy in waves of intensity that Hinata had never felt before.

Hinata's hands twitched, before he clenched them, shaking.

The Guardian noted his reaction with a sort of detached amusement.

 _'I will give this to you,'_ the Guardian said, shoving it into Hinata's waiting hands. It flashed when it touched his skin, the light suddenly near-blinding before fading away. 'I will give this to you so you can choose…hero.'

The Guardian suddenly shifted again, its head tilting up. Hinata clutched his legs a little tighter around the jelly-like body of the creature as they started rising up in slow spirals.

Hinata clutched the mirror to his body.

"Hero?" he echoed, hearing it again. Making something in his soul shiver.

 _'I will give you a month for your decision,'_ the Guardian said. _'If you refuse your destiny, throw this mirror back into the pool in which you first dived into. It will land safely back to me, and your destiny will be left to another.'_

It sighed.

_'It may even be a blessing if you do so…'_  


* * *

  
When Hinata reached the top, old lady Kobume just raised an eyebrow.

"Did you find anything? Strange, not strange...?"

Hinata blinked at her, before glancing down at the old, stately mirror in his hands. Sure, it was palm-sized, but it was by no means small enough for him to hide it, and it reeked of old qi. Granny Kobume wasn't one for tact; if she noticed she would ask.

Surely…?

"Nah, I didn't find anything! And the dragon-thing was really nice!" Hinata said while waving the mirror around, pretending to flail. Sure enough, Kobume didn't even notice it. Hinata faltered, but ploughed on. "We talked a lot. It's really smart. And I think it's lonely, but it said it wasn't lonely, and also it's been there a long time, did you know, hey, granny?"

Kobume gave Hinata a strange, considering look, before turning around with a small huff.

"Stop blabbering. Let's go back to village."

Hinata watched his teacher's back as she lead back out the little tree cave, glancing back at the pool, then at the mirror on his hands.

Back at home, after he'd apologised to his ma for being late to dinner, hugged his little sister, and practically dumped all the contents of his plate into his mouth in one go ( _'boys',_ his mother and sister muttered with a simultaneous eyeroll and man that was creepy), he raced to his room and slammed the sliding door shut.

Then he pulled out the mirror.

His reflection stared back, big eyed, soft cheeked, a shock of orange on top. His felt along the sides of the mirror – nothing stood out, the metal was all smooth. He mushed his face against it. Traced the qi characters for 'unlock' and other stuff onto it. Accidentally threw it against the wall (he'd shrieked and nearly had a heart attack, but it wasn't damaged at all, thankfully), and when he finally settled back, he was confused as to what all the qi inside this mirror _did_.

 _'Ask it a question'_ , the watery, wavery voice of the Guardian swelled in his mind, and Hinata dropped the mirror again with a yelp of shock.

"Guardian?" He called out into the air, and then bit his lip to stop all the other questions from spilling out of his mouth. Nothing. No reply.

Hinata looked at the mirror in his hands.

"Ummm… Okay! Mirror, can you show me what Yukitaka is doing?"

In an instant, his reflection warped into an image of Yukitaka's creepy room. Yukitaka was counting something, and Hinata drew away in disgust when he realised Yukitaka was counting salamander eyes. Again. Ugh!

Hinata was so glad he didn't have any talent for ritual magic at all. Hinata wondered what he could ask next, before his lit up.

Of course!

"Mirror, can you show me my dad?"

Yukitaka's image shifted into a tall man (Hinata still dreamed he got his dad's genes – he was nearly thirteen, and it was about time his dad's tall genes trumped his mother's, right?) with a shock of orange hair carrying a long sword, staring into the dawn with flowing long guild robes. Hinata could barely believe it as he let his fingers rest on the mirror. He hadn't seen his dad in years, as they only kept in contact through fortnightly letters, if the mail allowed.

 _'Ask for the person most important to you,'_ a voice whispered in the air right over his shoulder

Hinata yelped and fell off the bed. The Guardian really had to stop doing that, Hinata thought with a sour face as he hauled himself back up.

"Mirror, show me the person most important to me!" He ordered imperiously, feeling like a cool, powerful wizard.

The mirror wavered, sifting through a few scenes – a boy with his hair all shaved and his sister leaning over a map with only a long track and the starry sky above them, then to another boy (more plain faced and less fierce) tending bees in the late afternoon. It flitted over a plain village girl praying inside a church, to a fancily dressed boy smirking at a servant next to him, then a short bouncy guy with hair that had a shock of yellow grinning wildly at a whole wall of painted masks…

Then it settled down on a boy Hinata had never seen before.

The boy had a scowl on his face, the sharpest eyes he'd ever seen, and something was oddly unsettling about the way he moved, a gingery too-careful jerk, defensive and awkward inside his own skin. He was thin like an unhealthy stick, sitting next to a small field that was overlooking a huge, white desert. His blue-black hair was swept away from his forehead in the wind, but the boy didn't even shiver, just hugged his legs closer to himself with those sharp eyes that seemed to glare at the horizon, challenging it for something unknown and Hinata might've thought to protest about how the mirror was obviously ripping him off (he'd expected his mother, or his sister, or even maybe his dad), or maybe he would've just left the scene by asking another question but… but he couldn't look away.

He couldn't look away at all, and his heart thundered in his chest as he held the mirror tighter in his hands. It should've been the most boring thing in the world, to watch this boy watch the world and yet—

After five minutes, Hinata finally felt like he could breathe.

"Who is he?" He whispered to the air, suddenly feeling decades older. His heart was still _thump thump thump_ heavy and his fingers were digging into the mirror surface like they were trying to reach him. Hinata slowly unclenched his hands, feeling his bruised fingertips absently as his eyes tracked the boy's face, somehow dissatisfied with what he saw (but what had he been expecting?), before settling down in bed, lying down and putting the mirror in front of his face. For the next few minutes, the boy in the mirror just continued sitting there, hair flapping away in the wind, sitting on the mountain way past sunset. Hinata found himself sitting still too, like he was next to him staring into the night-time stars with him, something in him desperate not to leave.

Then the boy got up, brushed off his pants, and the mirror's view followed the boy as he walked down the mountain to a small place where he slept on a tiny mat. And just like that, Hinata conked out too, because he hadn't realised, but he'd actually sat there for half a night. Waaaay past his bedtime. A person should always get ten hours of sleep!

(He got woken up by Natsu pouring a cup of cold water on his face though. Harsh! His little sister was way too harsh!)  


* * *

  
Throughout the next few weeks, Hinata settled into routine. He'd do his stuff, finish his chores, do the exercises his old sadistic teacher thought up (Kobume was such a slavedriver) before going somewhere private to pull out the mirror and just… watch.

Kageyama Tobio (Hinata had found out his name as he lip-read one of the villagers calling his name) was a few months younger than him, quite silent, and lived in a mountain village instead of an island tribe like him, and was so, so lonely.

Hinata wanted to leap through the mirror and give him a hug. Make him smile, shove food at him. Wanted to punch him, for some reason, whenever the boy looked defeated. Even though he hadn't seen a smile even two weeks in, Hinata could somehow imagine it like he's seen it dozens, hundreds of times before.

Which, admittedly, was strange, because Hinata's imagination had always been kind of crappy to be honest.

The village noted his strange behaviour though, but copped it to weird growing up antics – Hinata was totally fine doing everything he was supposed to, after all. Koji and Yukitaka were concerned, because they realised something wasn't right when Hinata brushed off their offers to go their hideout. Hinata had always fiercely craved for something _more_ – their friend had never really fit into the sleepiness of the village, always bouncing, eager to go, eager to find something exciting when there was nothing exciting to be had.

It had become routine for Hinata to take out the mirror in the mornings, settling on a tree so high no-one could follow. On the third week, Hinata noted with interest when Kageyama hefted up a pack and set off down the mountain – something totally new.

Hinata had to stop watching for lunch, training, helping Yukitaka catch monkeys for their butt fur, and then dinner, but when he started watching again, Kageyama was sleeping inside a small hut next to the desert with another boy next to him.

The next day, a nice-looking light-haired boy wearing armour started travelling with him.

Hinata may or may not have screeched for a few minutes at Kageyama for trusting a stranger so easily before Natsu slammed his door open and body-slammed him into his futon (Natsu was still mad at him, because she was one of those light sleepers who couldn't get back to sleep easily even though he'd already bribed her with at _least_ three sticks of candy! What else did she want?)

Hinata watched, as they got attacked, as they camped. As the two boys ate and laughed, gradually, more naturally as time went on. Hinata really should've been bored and started watched something else by now (he had an all-powerful mirror, and man, there were so many things he could do with it), maybe looked up his father a little more, or checked out what was behind those screens his mother always told him not to check, but... There was a feeling of anxiety when he looked away from Kageyama.

Something in him tore when he reached out towards the mirror, and couldn't go through to the other side. 

( _look at me_ )

Like, why?

No, really. Why?

Hinata was even starting to feel a little annoyance at himself, perching on a branch to watch how currently, the light-haired boy (Sugawara, Hinata knew, because Kageyama called his name often enough) and Kageyama ate lunch together, Kageyama beaming when Sugawara praised his food.

But talking about weird things, it was totally weird right, that even with his annoyance at his sudden obsession on watching Kageyama for his emotional health, he also kept finding a lot of things that Kageyama did funny? Like, that weird scrunch of the eyebrows when Kageyama struggled with chopping mushrooms for dinner made him laugh, and the way he started following Sugawara like a duck behind its mother was hilarious (especially since he could see Sugawara's face from the front, usually exasperation mixed with reluctant fondness).

Hinata just... he just couldn't look away.

Even _Hinata_ found himself a little creepy. So on the last week, he put down the mirror. Lived village life, connected to his friends again. Played with Natsu, helped his ma do chores willingly. Smiled at his uncles and aunts, guarded the village against beasts.

It was nice. It… wasn't that bad, Hinata thought.

Then the deadline that the Guardian had mentioned arrived – after a month, if he wanted to reject 'destiny', he'd just have to throw the mirror back into the pool of water. Simple. Easy.

For the first time in a month, Hinata raced back to the tree in the middle of the lake with his heart doing that weird heavy thump thing again, in anticipation and adrenaline. Choices. He'd never really needed much of those in life - a child never needed to choose much, and his ma had only recently started giving him more responsibility.

This was, Hinata complained in his head, such a heavy choice too! It was like being given a taste of water when he'd never known what water was, before being told he was allowed to choose to live a life without water and live with knowing he could have had it!

Hinata jumped unerringly back into the little cave that old lady Kobume had led him to that one time, his mind whirring with thoughts. Gazing into the pool, he clenched the mirror nervously in his hands. His fingers did that nervous tick thing, and he visibly stilled it, pulling the mirror out of his pockets, now.

The pool was as fathomless as always. Hinata imagined he could see a flash of the Guardian's light-bones, deep within.

The mirror was in his hands. It would be so easy to just... let go.

He stood there though. Waiting. It was a few minutes late, but Hinata wasn't all that surprised with the Guardian's voice echoed in his brain.

 _'Choose',_ the voice urged.

And Hinata had thought long and hard about this, and he had two last questions left for the mirror. Just two more, before he decided.

"What will happen if I threw you back into the pool right now?" He asked, and the mirror showed him.

The mirror's Hinata went back into the village and smiled at Yukitaka and Koji, whose worried faces relaxed as he fully integrated back into their group again. The next scene was obviously a few years later, as an older Hinata leapt through the trees and accidentally crashed into a tree from excess enthusiasm and got knocked out. A girl found him, and even Hinata now found her really pretty, all pink hair and gold eyes. A smile that burned beautiful, pure. Years later, they married, and Hinata had a daughter just as pretty as his future wife. A son with orange hair and gold eyes and liked studying, horrifyingly enough. He grew old with a smile on his face, with good friends around him, grandchildren insisting he play with them.

Hinata fingers trembled.

Then he asked.

"What will happen if I kept you? Can you show me?"

The picture of a smiling old man with greying orange hair with his daughter next to him, his son singing a song with his wife deep in the house, and Natsu next to him laughing at a stupid joke he made immediately disappeared as another one rippled forth.

Hinata saw himself struggling forward with tears on his face as he raced towards some sort of fire. A city was burning, and Hinata screamed and hurled himself straight in, desperate for something he didn't know—then something broke, shifted, and he was suddenly laughing around a campfire with a group of people, and there, Hinata's eyes widened. Kageyama. Kageyama sat next to him with those sharp eyes and his expressionless face, warming as Hinata obviously told a joke and the other boy hummed, bumping their elbows together. The picture shifted, to where an older him was fighting for his life, surrounded by all sides by darkness filled with red eyes and the Hinata in the mirror stabbed and whirled as he protected a glowing azure figure behind him…

In the last scene, Hinata and Kageyama were sitting in a young spring field, still muddy and not grassy enough yet. They tilted back to splat on the ground in unison, uncaring of the mud as they... Stargazed? Hinata was waving his arms around happily, babbling about something, and Kageyama next to him was struggling to contain a smile, shrugging in reply. Then mirror-Hinata glanced slyly at Kageyama, saying a joke maybe and Kageyama laughed. A full-blown, happy laugh.

But there was no old age. No promise of a happy end.

_'Choose'._

His whole life and everything he knew, for the possibility of meeting one person he's never even met with. That probably doesn't even know he existed. It was crazy, it was so obvious what people would want him to choose, what his common sense told him to choose. The pink-haired girl was gorgeous, and his daughter had the prettiest gold eyes. His son became a scholar. Natsu, all grown up, his ma aging and caring, as she scolded him into becoming a functional adult...

And the other side. A flash of sharp eyes, a look of loneliness.

( _look at me_ )

A yawning gape in his soul, reaching out for something his whole life.

For some reason, it was the easiest choice in the world.

Hinata stepped back, clutching the mirror to his chest, and right then, he felt the dragon rumble in his head.

 _'I bid you good luck, young Hero,'_ it said, before quietening down.

Well, Hinata thought blankly, still unbelieving that he actually did that.

His mother had always called him reckless. He'd never argue back again.

The next day, he told Kobume everything. When her eyes widened at all that whirling heavy destiny around her student, she just rolled her eyes and grumbled that he should've known better than _accept_ , the idiot. After doing a reading for him, the former priestess-in-training then helped him to say farewell to his family (his mother was horrified, his sister was crying, but he'd already _chosen_ ) because his best chances of success would be to leave on the day.

In their village, it wasn't so odd for a youth to test themselves by going out over to the mainland, even if youth usually meant fifteen-ish and not thirteen.

When his mother protested, Kobume hobbled into the house and helped his mother with supplies, and when they both came out of the kitchen, his mother was calm and accepting, if not smiling. Hinata had been sitting out on the porch, writing letters for Yukitaka and Koji, Natsu quietly nibbling some winter melon by his side.

"Stay safe. Don't trust strangers so easily," his mother said, hugging him tight. "You're only thirteen. Remember you have an uncle somewhere over on the mainland, and you can find him whenever you need to, okay? Your father is a bit busy now, but I know he'll drop everything for you too, if you need it."

His mother drew back, but her hands were still on his shoulders. "Kobume, are you sure he can't… wait a few more years?"

Kobume sighed, her old wrinkled hands wrapping around each other. "I did a reading for Hinata after he tell me about this destiny. If he wants to even try success, he leaves by tonight."

Their village still believed in the old ways and Kobume's words hit his mother like a rock. His mother's look wavered and looked a little teary, before she let him go, mumbling about some extra bandages in the cabinets and stepped back into the house.

"Will you come back?" Natsu asked, quiet. "Will you be like dad?"

Hinata swallowed, before grinning, fierce.

"Of course I'll come back, Natsu!" Hinata pounded his chest with a fist. "I'm your older brother! I'm _awesome_ at all the boosting exercises Granny gives me! I'll kick all this bad-guy butt, find the person I keep seeing in the mirror and come back all cool and tall and stuff! I'll even find dad and lug him back here!"

Natsu smiled at that, and bumped fists with him. "You promised!"

They all took a photograph together before the house, and his mother promptly copied it so that they all had a copy. It was with a heavy backpack that he set off on a small boat to the main continent, with hope and adventure in his heart.

Natsu stared at the small speck of orange, as her brother slowly sailed away.

"I hope you find Tobio too, brother," Natsu mumbled, before turning back to hold her mother's hand for the village.  


* * *

  
Okay, so Hinata might not have expected this.

"Oi, you okay?" A voice above his head said, sounding gruffly concerned as another shadow turned him over.

"W-w-water," Hinata croaked out, his hands shooting out to grab the other's pants. _"Fooooooood,"_ he groaned.

"Dammit, watch the pants!" The voice yelled even as the hands gently extracted the pants from Hinata's grip.

There was a girl laughing somewhere.

"Ryu, just give him some water and food. We have a little extra, don't we?"

"But sis! We might need it, just in case!" The other voice griped even as Hinata let his head flop back dramatically back into the dirt. In a ditch next to the road. Some type of weed was poking into his back, but he was too tired to even scratch that.  


* * *

  
"Thanks!" Hinata beamed, vigorously bowing ten times to his saviours. They were truly angels! The Samaritans of all Samaritans! "You guys are really, really nice!"

They had even found his backpack for him, when he thought he'd lost it when the boat sank! When he rummaged through his bag, everything was still there too!

What wonderful people!

The girl laughed boisterously, and the two siblings gave him a terrifyingly identical smile.

Wow, they looked alike.

"No problem, kid! What's your name?" The girl said, punching his shoulder lightly. The younger brother was still packing their bags after giving him something to eat (the extra food had been all the way at the bottom, dammit all).

"Hinata Shouyou! Please call me Hinata!"

"Well, Hinata. I'm Tanaka Saeko, and this is my idiot brother Tanaka Ryunosuke. It's nice to meet you too! Just call me Saeko, you can call my brother Ryu!"

Tanaka spluttered at his sister even as Hinata laughed.

"Ryu? We only just met the guy!"

Saeko laughed boisterously, hand on her back. "That's what happens when you travel with family, Ryu! Too many last names makes people confused!"

Hinata looked around, now that he'd revived. The sea was close by, rising into some small, scraggly shrubbery before joining into a coastal road that ran parallel to the coast. The coastal road was straight and empty except these two, mostly, and Hinata raised a curious eyebrow at them now.

"Hey, why are you guys here? Why is nobody here? Where did you get those awesome swords? And where am I?" Hinata shot rapid fire, craning around to try and see whether he could see any other landmark that wasn't beach, ocean, or road.

"Woah, easy, Hinata," Saeko responded, as Ryu straightening now that he'd finished packing. "Calm down."

Ryu pushed forward though, and with a grand pose and gesture, gave a wide, glinting smile.

"Young Hinata, let me wisen you up to our ways. Me and big sis here, you know? We're adventurers. Isn't that cool?"

Hinata's eyes sparkled. Wow! Life on the road, stepping into the unknown with every step with only your heart to guide the way! Vigilanteing across the nation! Fulfilling requests and getting rewards from kings!

"Adventurers?" Hinata managed to gush out his enthusiasm around the garble that wanted to explode out, "that's _so cool."_

"Right? And you said my sword was awesome, right? Here, behold!" Tanaka unsheathed his sword and held it high under the sunlight to make it as glint mightily. Tanaka slyly looked over his shoulder, and saw the other kid had his jaw dropped (swords hadn't been allowed in Hinata's tribe, generally speaking).

Hey, this kid ain't bad!

"You're so cool, Tanaka!"

"Ahahaha! Praise me again!"

"So cool!"

Tanaka struck another pose. Hinata clapped enthusiastically.

Saeko facepalmed.

Idiots.  


* * *

  
_Extras_

_Hinata is the very annoying room-mate who doesn't think before grabbing food from the fridge, and not realising that he grabbed someone else's food by accident. It's not his fault it looked tasty! This may, or may not have been a source of why Kageyama is tempted to commit homicide at least once a week, because there is no safe space to store food if one lives with Hinata. NOWHERE._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have everything planned for Tsukishima and Yamaguchi's arc because things happen, but Hinata needs to be introduced before that stuff happens because of plot reasons, so I was torn between two pacing choices, hah. Next chapter will be Yamaguchi and his time-looping city. ^^  
> Thank you very much for your comments. They make my day a little brighter when I read them.


	7. Travelling, conversations, reflections

Kageyama was all too familiar with the power of money. It created security, gave people a way to express themselves through what they owned, defined a way of social status and lead to so many opportunities that wouldn't have come by if you had less.

He'd seen it, many, many times. When all he'd wanted was to play volleyball the best he could, he'd be sucked into pretending not to see players being replaced or shifted because of some greased palms upstairs, management moving in and out because of prospective relationships and sponsorships. He'd known he was blessed when all he thought about, in regards to having and using money, was that he'd never have to worry. He'd always had enough to use. Along with Hinata sharing a lot of the bills in their apartment, with their shared interest in many things like training equipment to split costs, Kageyama had always thought simple. If he had enough to live and grow in ways that he wished… he didn't much think of getting more.

Tsukishima however, was different.

They weren't often alone together. But they drank together more, Tsukishima and Kageyama, as they grew older. Tsukishima would sometimes call, and sometimes, Kageyama would put on a jacket, jab his feet into some shoes and go.

Kageyama, settling on a random glass of whatever was on the menu, and Tsukishima always drinking a seventeen year old Hibiki whiskey, staring at how the gold of the alcohol swirled in curls of cold as it touched the ice within.

He'd known enough about this strange, old high school friend of his that he was called because Tsukishima seemed to find in him some symbol of removal from society; the one that Kageyama observed and avoided by the sheer fact his genius could not be replaced, but where Tsukishima had fully dove into, swam, and thrived after he started working. He thought, as he watched Tsukishima, that this lead to a strange dichotomy of Tsukishima seeing him for who he is (he'd called Kageyama an idiot too many times to count), but also seeing him through this barrier, this removed figure that Kageyama would uncomfortably note that there was a faint sort of admiring envy.

He'd watch Tsukishima in those dark, comfortable places that got progressively richer and fancier as the years went by. Quiet in contemplation. Tsukishima, never really saying much and only sometimes giving into light snarky banter over how his _court_ was going, _king_. Kageyama would grunt or reply with one or two word answers, watching how Tsukishima would slowly unwind as time whittled by between them.

Contradictory.

Dark eyes, over the salted rim of a cocktail.

That's what he'd describe Tsukishima. Him, chasing financial success, chasing the next promotion, and succeeding in any person's view when his age didn't match the position he'd been given. With a taunting smirk, he'd show off suits, expensive food, fancy restaurants and model apartments and houses, on him creating a social circle with a number that made Kageyama's head spin.

And on rare nights, he would call an old high school friend out and drink in silence.

"He called me brave once," Yamaguchi said to him with a shrug, adjusting a telescope. His lab coat wrinkled at the edges as he pushed some stray hairs out of his face. "Though I don't really have any idea why he'd say so. If anything, _Tsukki's_ the one who's amazing. He got another promotion recently, did you hear?" Yamaguchi beamed, before his shoulders sagged a little. "Unlike me. I'm still a stupid intern in my professor's lab getting paid peanuts. I chose astronomy because I liked it," Yamaguchi moaned. "Why didn't anyone tell me I won't get a job after all of that study?"

Kageyama stood on the side sucking dry a box of milk, observing Yamaguchi settling down in front of myriads of datasheets.

 _And that's why you're brave_ , Kageyama didn't say.

Those nights echoed loud in his head now, as Kageyama watched this smaller Tsukishima give a liberal amount of money into a guard's hands, eyes already dimming into some of the cynical edges that he was all too used to seeing.

"Let's go," Tsukishima said curtly, his hands receding back into his cloak as he led them inside. The dark edges of night-time was already receding into a sort of bluish dawn grey, and Tsukishima obviously reacted to this by tightening his stance and pacing forward faster.

On the rooftop, Tsukishima had started to tell them of his circumstances before stilling, pointing out that a random rooftop wasn't the safest space to tell family secrets, especially if he had just been set upon in an ambush. Then he'd led them to this large, looming white tower, secretive and silent.

The tower still had their lights on even in the darkness, and Kageyama walked sleepily into warmth and marble flooring. It was the sudden cadence of Tsukishima's boots from a dull thud to a sharp click on the polished floor that made him blink a little more alertly down into his reflection, and all around at the gold trimmings and fur-lined robes of every personnel that stood around and greeted Tsukishima warmly when he pushed something into their hands. The heavy wooden door boomed shut behind Sugawara to shut out the night chill.

"Something to smoothen the way," Tsukishima muttered with a smile, and Kageyama really only heard the soft voice because there was no-one else in this room full of roman archways and mysterious ornate corridors. They'd stepped into a room with seven branching corridors, with a tapestry depicting different landscapes above each. Kageyama quickly glanced through them. A white castle rising above a snowy forest, a desert metropolis…

"Come on, Kageyama," Sugawara smiled as he gently pushed him forward. "I know you're sleepy after all of this, but just a little more."

"What is this place?" Kageyama asked, absentmindedly as he followed Tsukishima's back.

Sugawara's smile was patient as he pointed to the tapestries. "It's a teleportation tower. It's very expensive to maintain, and the knowledge to make such a large scale transport system is protected by…" Sugawara tapped a finger to his chin. "How do I say it? Vested interests, you can say." His grey eyes flickered over the few personnel who had swarmed Tsukishima with a sort of distant amusement. "Those are priests of the silver order. They're the faction that worships the gods that are related to wealth and riches."

Now that Sugawara pointed it out, he could see how the white cloaks could look sort of religious.

In a quieter voice, Sugawara told him, "They'll do anything for money if it doesn't directly oppose their terms of faith. So if you don't have enough money, it's always a good idea to avoid them."

When Kageyama pointedly looked at Tsukishima smarming it up, Sugawara laughed.

"That young master has more than enough money, Kageyama. He can afford it."

And just on time, Tsukishima turned and nodded at them, as one of the priests split from the group and bowed to them.

"This way, honoured guests," the priest smiled, leading them to an archway underneath a tapestry depicting a large church segmented stained glass windows. They followed in silence, their group of four passing marble halls that shined until Kageyama could see his reflection on every visible surface like some weird twisted sort of mirror house. The priest didn't lead them up the tower, instead ushered downwards in a gentle spiral to somewhere under the earth.

Kageyama shivered. He didn't like enclosed spaces much.

They soon stopped at a room.

"Please," the priest bowed to all three of them, "go in. The array will activate in a few minutes."

They shuffled in to awkwardly huddle in the middle of a room carved with curved grooves in a pattern that reminded him of a brainless morning in Japan, watching a video of someone designing a logo using some sort of mirroring tool to make it perfectly symmetrical. The marble shone as some sort of light started filling the lines like liquid, moving into the spiralling grooves in a sudden rush of movement. Sugawara and Tsukishima, when Kageyama glanced, seemed totally unperturbed by the fact that the light was practically lunging at them, except for the fact that Sugawara had pulled his hood on, and had kindly covered Kageyama's eyes with his palm.

"It's perfectly safe," Sugawara assured him, calming his fidgeting nearly even before it begun.

The light lapped their feet and moved upwards, and to his surprise… the magic felt warm, unlike the cold feeling of his own. It moved in a swirl, actually, like a whirlpool spinning and spinning until—

Darkness.

Sugawara pulled his hand away from Kageyama's eyes only to try pull up his hood for him.

…He wasn't _actually_ a kid.

"I can do it myself," he sidestepped, quickly pulling up his hood and looking around to ignore Sugawara's amused clucking. The room looked exactly the same, but it was Tsukishima, who had been looking at their interaction with a blank sort of look in his eyes, who moved forward first.

"Follow me," he said, stepping to the door and quickly pushing it open. It opened into the same sort of gleaming hallway as before, but this time another person was outside, already in mid-bow towards Tsukishima.

"Dear customer, let me lead you to the exit," the priest smiled, before leading the way out, exactly the same way as before. The large wooden door opened to a wide street with low squatting cottages, unlike the dignified white-stoned houses that the Capital tended to have. "Welcome to the holy city of wealth and prosperity," the priest said. "If you want to see the Holy Father, he starts his visiting hours at nine. Please enjoy your stay," the priest smiled and finished, and Kageyama this time, flicked his eye upward to look at his divine title.

_[Wealth-loving Scammer]._

Just like the others.

Kageyama frowned, and stepped closer to Sugawara as the priest closed the door behind them. Tsukishima frowned at the dawning sky and clicked his tongue.

"Tch. Later than I thought."

"So this is Daikoku's city," Sugawara mused as he glanced around, noting the wooden cottages and the shadows of larger buildings around the corner. "Hey, Tsukishima. Where are we going now?"

"We're going to book a carriage," Tsukishima replied with a quick glance at them both, before moving forward. "I've been to this city a few times, and I know a… discreet service. It'll get us to Hisho, where my friend is. I know what you two are thinking," he continued as they trailed after him again, giving them a sardonic smile "I'll tell the sordid tale of my family's circumstances once we get on the carriage."

Sugawara shrugged. "Knowing more will admittedly help us help you."

Tsukishima merely grunted in response and continued walking.

 _"Tsukki looks so sad,"_ Yamaguchi murmured in his head as Kageyama plodded behind the other two. Sugawara's feet light and quick, and Tsukishima's landing with the clink of expensive boots. Tsukishima held his head in a tense line, forward with his eyes hard, his cloak billowing like those western fantasies that he'd read before. He looked totally different compared to the more suspicious hooded robes Sugawara favoured.

"We're here," Tsukishima said curtly, looking at a large carriage house. "Stay here. I'll come back soon."

"Sure," Sugawara replied with an easy smile, stepping back to stay next to Kageyama and out of the doorway. They both watched Tsukishima disappear into the closed store with no hesitation at all, door slamming shut behind him.

After a moment of silence, Sugawara peered down at him. "Kageyama, what do you think?"

"About Tsukishima?" Kageyama asked, moving his focus from the doorway towards Sugawara. The other boy's face was tilted into a warm smile, and something that had been keyed up in Kageyama for the past few days relaxed when he saw the playful glint in his eyes… Eyes which were distracted. Kageyama tilted his head, glancing between him and the closed shop next to him. "Sugawara… Are you still watching Tsukishima in the shop?"

Sugawara's answering smile told him everything he needed to know. Having been surprised again and again for the past few weeks by Sugawara's amazing strength and abilities, Kageyama had grown slightly numb at his own mook status by now.

"Thoughts?" Sugawara just prodded again.

"Well," Kageyama shrugged. Yamaguchi's words echoed in his mind, and he found his eyes straying back towards the closed door before returning to Sugawara. "He seems sad."

Sugawara gave a huff of laughter. "From what we've heard, he has ample cause to be," he said with his usual carefree lightness. "But do you like him?" He continued to prod Kageyama, poking him in the shoulder.

Batting the finger away, Kageyama nodded. "I want to help him."

"I noticed you didn't even question his brother's innocence," Sugawara said, faux casual.

_Do you know something?_

Kageyama himself had picked up a few things in the few weeks he'd travelled with Sugawara. Other than their growing friendship and lessons on worldly commonsense, Sugawara had let slip some things in between. That he was a sage. Sages were rare. And sages, apparently, sometimes just _knew_ things. It was such a convenient reason that Kageyama had abused it liberally for the past few weeks.

"Tsukishima Akiteru is innocent," Kageyama said without any room for negotiation, and something in Sugawara's eyes shifted. 

"And?" Sugawara prompted with patience when the silence lingered a little too long.

"And… although I don't know how well we'll get along with each other," since it had taken Tsukishima and Kageyama an embarrassing amount of time to keep a decent conversation, "I know there's no better person to call a friend than Tsukishima Kei."

Sugawara blinked in surprise at his bald admission, but Kageyama stubbornly stuck to it.

Tsukishima liked to portray himself as an unmotivated, unreliable flake of a millennial in everything that required effort and got embarrassed whenever someone caught him out actually passionate over anything… but he always pulled through when times were hard.

 

(On another early morning, after another insomnia filled night, he remembered Tsukishima standing at the doorway with his own eye-bags. Haggard, and deliberately showing it off to be obnoxious. At his incredulous look when the other had shoved a file of papers into his arms, all Tsukishima answered was a simple _"Tch. I'm not the type to leave people hanging,"_ with a sneer to end it with, because Kageyama was not one of those friends Tsukishima showed _feelings_ to, and Kageyama wouldn't have it any other way.)

 

…Though if he had a choice, Kageyama probably wouldn't pick Tsukishima to hang out with on a normal day.

When Sugawara started to reply, Tsukishima pushed open the door. He paused at the doorway for a second before stepping out of the building, avoiding Kageyama's eyes and looking straight at Sugawara instead. "The carriage will be coming soon," Tsukishima said. "I've settled payments. I have something I need to buy, but it'll be quick. I'll be back in five minutes."

Then Tsukishima took off, quickly rounding the corner and somewhere only Sugawara's slightly unfocused eyes could watch.

( _"I know exactly what's going through that other me's mind,"_ Tsukishima said, dry. _"You've somehow successfully made me confused. Congrats."_ )

"Oh dear," Sugawara said, his voice ever so slowly tilting into a teasing smirk. "I think he heard you, Kageyama."

…

Kageyama shrugged. "I was just stating the truth."

"Of course you were," Sugawara answered, face still half stuck in the sort of troll face he remembered was usually directed at Asahi. "Should I start making a welcome to the group card for him? Some friendship bracelets?"

Friendship bracelets?

Sugawara couldn't help bursting out laughing at Kageyama's affronted face.

"Alright, alright, no friendship bracelets. It's good to have a friend your same age, anyway," Sugawara nodded, "And I trust your instincts. If you say he's a good person, then it'll be good to depend on him in the future since he'll be a great support to you, as a Duke's son and all."

Kageyama sighed.

"I don't want a support," he replied to Sugawara's opportunistic thinking. He was more used to Sugawara doing this to everyone that _wasn't_ in their group.

"What do you want then?" Sugawara's eyes sparkling in amusement, probably knowing his answer more than he did. Kageyama idly wondered where the butt of the joke was. Probably him.

"I want a friend," Kageyama said clearly, biting the bullet anyway.

Sugawara's grinning eyes flicked behind him. Next, he noticed that the sounds of some familiar boots had stopped behind him, and Kageyama stiffened. Keeping Sugawara's laughing face in mind, he slowly turned around to see a stiff-faced Tsukishima who, this time, didn't shy away from his gaze. His eyes were more complicated than before, even as behind him, a carriage trundled forward without a creak.

"…Let's go inside." Tsukishima said into the uncomfortable pause, stepping inside himself.

( _"Ugh."_ Tsukishima groaned. _"You've made it personal. Gross, Suga"_ )

Kageyama turned accusingly at Sugawara.

"Hey, let's go in, Kageyama!" Was all the traitor said before slinging himself inside the carriage, all too easily dragging Kageyama into the seat next to him. The door automatically closed behind them, as they rolled down the streets towards the gates of the city.

Looking around at all the plump cushions dyed in a variety of muted colours, with seats that seemed like velvet, Kageyama made an internal face when he dared to lean back on one. It was hard after a layer of softness. What did they put in them, rocks?

Tsukishima turned around to his seat to open a flap facing the driver.

"Hisho," Tsukishima said shortly through the gap.

"--Order Acknowledged--" Replied an inflectionless voice. Kageyama widened his eyes when he noticed the driver wasn't a human. A puppet? It was made of a matte grey metal that he'd mistaken for a uniform at first.

"Is this the first time you've seen a carriage doll service?" Tsukishima broke the silence first, closing the flap as he did so. Kageyama nodded in reply. "Carriage dolls are a little more expensive to hire, but considering what we're doing, I thought it would be more trustworthy than a human." Tsukishima smiled a little condescendingly. "This way, no-one knows where we're going past the checkpoint out of the city."

Oh. That made sense.

Giving a short nod in thanks for the explanation, Kageyama started taking care of his own affairs, carefully propping Nekomata's staff on a slanted diagonal and holding in the urge to go out and examine the carriage doll. Kenma had been the epitome of a lifeless, dead-inside programmer when he grew up, but he'd overheard enough of Hinata and Kenma's excited conversations about the amazing possibilities of androids and artificial intelligence in the future that he'd been halfway infected into anticipating them himself. This seemed pretty familiar, didn't it? What would it take to make something like this smarter?

Hah. If Hinata was here, he would have already slung himself out the window and launched himself at the doll and break it, and they'd get nowhere, probably.

Kageyama suppressed the small smile when Sugawara cleared his throat.

"Okay, now that pleasantries are over, tell us the situation, Tsukishima. What do you know?" Sugawara pulled down the curtains over the windows before shedding his cloak. Tsukishima pressed something, switching on a small light and letting some sort of power bubble protectively around them.

Since it seemed like the start of story time, Kageyama shifted the bags and cloaks into a pile behind his back, curling up while Tsukishima started to frown as he recalled the past, staring down at his hands. He clenched them, before staring up with intensity.

"My brother," he started, daring them to refute, "was the _best._ "

Tsukishima Akiteru was an extremely competent magical investigator. He'd cleared three cases in his first active year, and halfway through the second, sniffed out a large slavery ring that was meritorious enough to get an audience and a medal from the king.

Five months before the incident, he was assigned a case from the King in the city of Hisho, a luxurious resort town dedicated to catering for travellers doing pilgrimage to the Holy City dedicated to prosperity and wealth. Kei had never enquired as to what he was investigating, but by the careful consideration of the personnel Akiteru had selected, it had been a difficult, and potentially dangerous quest.

The investigation lasted for two months. During those two months, Akiteru seemingly found nothing except for a few promising traces of an underground communication system, and a small drug cartel.

Three months ago, Kei had his 13th birthday celebration, and his father called Akiteru back for a brief break. During the week long affair, everything had gone to normal course, and Akiteru had been set to return to Hisho to continue his investigation when he'd received some missives that delayed him unexpectedly. These delays continued. During this time, Kei had been busy with his own lessons, and had only noted that Akiteru often didn't appear at dinner, and had looked a little haggard compared to usual. This was generally normal behaviour for Akiteru when he was immersed in his work, so Kei didn't think much of it.

Two months ago, his father was found murdered in his bed, with both his mother and brother missing. A week later, his mother's body parts were found in the black market, with traces leading to his brother's comatose body in a warehouse at the edge of the city, with paper evidence that he was the one who designed his parent's murder.

"That's the official account of the events," Tsukishima said quietly, letting the boy on the other side of the carriage snore away. It was undignified at best, and disgusting at worst. Drool was leaking from the side of his face all the way to his neck, and Tsukishima had never seen anything like it.

"Oh Kageyama," was all Sugawara sighed as he wiped the drool off with a corner of his cloak before draping it over the other boy.

Tsukishima watched silently, before slightly clearing his throat. Glancing to the corner of a cushion, Tsukishima muttered "Hisho is still two hours away. We can wait until he wakes up."

Sugawara had a whole other game face on for him, the fond edges straightening up into bland, genial smile. "No need. I'll summarise the details to Kageyama later. He's quite…" Sugawara searched for a word, eyes roaming the edges of their fancy carriage thoughtlessly. "Removed, you could say."

Tsukishima hummed in response, because honestly speaking, watching Sugawara fuss over Kageyama made him think of Akiteru. He wrenched his eyes away to examine his hands. Sugawara gave him a moment, some compassion in his eyes that made Tsukishima's teeth feel on edge, before tactfully moving on.

"Alright, what's the non-official account of the events?"

Tsukishima let out a sigh.

"The non-official events start two weeks after the murder," Tsukishima said as he closed his eyes, "when I got impatient from how no-one seemed to be doing anything, or giving me any results. I got in contact with some of the more dubious informational brokers, and gave them free reign to search into my father and my brother's affairs for the year leading up to the event. Eventually, I found a lead. It seems…" Tsukishima paused, because sometimes even _he_ found it unbelievable when he read the file. "It seems the crown prince had given my brother an investigation in regards to demonic conversions."

Sugawara sucked in a harsh breath.

"Demons? But the demon king was only defeated ten years ago. Everybody felt the Hero take him down. The king _died_."

"I know that," Tsukishima replied with a harsh twist to the mouth. " _Everyone_ knows that."

"Demons come from accumulated negative energy. With the King dead, it's literally impossible for any demons to even start appearing on the main continent for the next twenty years!"

Sugawara only realised how loud his outburst was when he had to take a harsh breath.

Demons. Demons were _terrifying_.

When Sugawara was four and in training, he'd met a demon once. It was sized like a young woman, with ribbons in hair that had been rotting from the roots outwards, hair still shining healthy at the tips. She had been shovelling dirt in her mouth like a starved man, skin tinged with grey before her eyes (black from iris to sclera to _everything_ ) had seen them. She looked at him and smiled, dirt dropping in clumps from her half open mouth that drizzled into dead dust. His team had immediately retreated, the squad leader barking for them to flee, _now_ , and it had been horrifying because they never fled, it was their creed, it was their _duty_.

That was in the last months of the calamity, before the great Hero from Jin stepped up and defeated the Demon King and brought peace back.

Magic, qi, energy, was generally an ordered force, flowing in logical routes alongside nature. However, when some aspect of nature was thrown into chaos, the magic that coursed throughout that body would also become a chaotic and disordered force. Humans had magic inside them too, and when humans experienced too much chaos, tragedy… Their magic, the very essence of the _qi_ in their soul, could get corrupted.

It was a vicious process. Corrupted _qi_ would unravel from its life-source and force itself out of the body that contaminated it. As the corruption spiralled out, the body would then try to intake as much ordered _qi_ from around them to survive. Some people ate nonstop. Some drowned themselves in natural reservoirs of magic. Some would learn how to suck magic out of the world around them to try and fill the void where their natural qi used to sit, never to be fulfilled because the moment the ordered qi was ingested, it was corrupted.

And during this process, they would only spew more and more chaotic qi out into the world around them, corrupting their environment by their sheer existence. If left long enough, their chaos would corrupt the plants, the animals, and the very land they lived on. Once these people lost their sentience in their addicted desperation to feel _alive_ through sucking in uncorrupted energy, becoming haunted beings that wandered the world for uncorrupted places, they were officially called _demons_.

However, if all it took was grief to turn a person into a demon, humanity would have been extinct long ago.

No, chaotic qi wasn't natural to humans. Humans, as part of nature, were naturally inclined towards order, and so if any chaotic qi did start to occur the body would naturally expel it into the environment. In tiny amounts, chaotic qi did nothing. It existed, and usually, it was swallowed by the natural qi surrounding it to become a part of the neutral order again.

However, throughout time, in enough amounts, these wisps of chaos could accumulate. Grow slowly, but steadily.

There was something that scholars called a threshold. Once that threshold, the ratio of orderly and chaotic energy was broken, the world accommodated its rules – from chaos being an _unnatural_ deviation of qi, to one where it was recognised as _another type of energy on its own_. Once this rule was changed, the world would then provide the energy a place to exist.

One source to nurture and grow this chaos.

_Demon King._

Once a demon king was born, chaotic qi would exponentially increase in quality and amount. Plants and animals would be the first to succumb to chaos. Then the weak and the vulnerable, the grieving and the lost. Monsters would start appearing from corrupted streams of qi to attack any pure source, creating more fear, more pain, more grief, more demons…

That woman, clawing at some fertile earth and swallowing it desperately.

Even just thinking about it made Sugawara swallow in fear. "Demonic conversion is literally impossible right now," he restated. "Are you sure your brother was investigating demonic conversions and not something like, some weirdo doing horrible magic experiments?"

"I know it doesn't make sense," Tsukishima snapped back with a scowl, "but that's what I got, and the info is undoubtedly trustworthy!"

Their voices had grown a little loud again and they both froze when Kageyama frowned, mumbling in his sleep.

When all Kageyama did was roll over, Sugawara sighed, massaging his temples. "Sorry, sorry. I… It's not a pleasant topic. I believe you." He backed down with a silent wave of an apology at Tsukishima.

"Good," Tsukishima replied in a soft grumble. "I didn't believe it either, but I double-checked and those letters had the official royal seal and everything. Akiteru had been looking up a report of someone who had apparently 'gone mad' after her daughter died. A well-respected baker in the town. She soon committed suicide, but what made alarm bells ring was when her whole family, who lived with her, also 'went mad'. When Akiteru arrived, he apprehended them and took them somewhere." Tsukishima scowled. "Don't ask me where, _I don't know_. It's been one of the things I couldn't find out."

"Okay. Nothing else?"

Tsukishima smiled slightly. "My brother is the best rising star in the magical investigation unit for the past seventy years," he said with a little pride. "Of course he didn't come out with nothing. Akiteru reported traces of an underground communication system, right? That wasn't a lie. He reported he just found traces of it on his report, but he actually found more than that. The underground system wasn't for communication. Akiteru thought that maybe… it was the remnants of a chaotic vein of magic."

Tsukishima watched for the other's reaction, who just swallowed hard and managed to say in bland blatant understatement, "Well, that's dangerous."

"You think?" Tsukishima raised an eyebrow.

Even if chaos wasn't an active, recognised energy once it was beat down and the ratio of energy restored, veins like that still tended collect the wisps of chaos that still existed.

"There's more too. I sent my best friend to Hisho after I got this news—"

Then Sugawara's eyes widened as he flung out a hand to shush the other boy, one hand having already flicked a dagger out of an armguard.

"I sense something. Be quiet," Sugawara whispered. "I'm going to go outside. Wake Kageyama up and make sure he holds the staff. He's quite new to being a magician, so make sure to give him clear instructions if you have any." With that, he quickly unlatched the door, quickly flitting out and slamming it behind him, landing on the roof.

It was morning now, the sun clearing out the last vestiges of an orange sunrise. In the daytime, even after days of running on hardly any sleep, he could still pick out the three hidden signatures in the trees in front of them.

Sugawara rolled his eyes and calmed down. Newbies. Even Daichi could beat them one on three, hands down.

It didn't take long before Sugawara was lugging an unconscious person through the doorway, admittedly struggling a bit because hey, the carriage was still moving. A set of pale hands tried to help haul the body inside, letting him have a bit of reprieve to slip inside and finish the process.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Sugawara knocked Kageyama on the forehead, closing the door behind him. "Sorry for waking you up."

Kageyama shook his head. "No, its fine, Sugawara. What's with the body? Were we about to get attacked?"

Sugawara noticed the other boy's knuckles were clenched white around the staff, and his heart softened. "Sorry Kageyama, it's not like that. I just sensed something, but it's a false alarm." Sugawara prodded the body. "I think. They were way too easy to handle. Probably just normal bandits. I left the other two and took this one, just in case we decided we wanted to interrogate but he seems pretty poor."

This time, it was Tsukishima who frowned. "Bandits on the main road from Hisho to the Holy City? That's… unusual."

"Why?" Kageyama asked, skirting into Tsukishima's space to avoid the body being slung on the floor. Sugawara kept a casual eye on the two of them as he rifled the man's pockets.

"Hisho's a very religious city. The guards take guarding this road very seriously," Tsukishima explained. "Bandits should be non-existent."

"Oh. Okay. Did you find anything, Sugawara?"

Sugawara opened his hand to show a few coins, a folded handkerchief, and for some strange reason, five spoons. Pocketing the coins, he shoved the rest back into the man's pockets and pulled out a piece of rope from his own bag.

"There's not much to show that they're any sort of dangerous. I'll tie him up for now, and monitor him. While I'm doing that, want to explain what's happening to Kageyama, Tsukishima?"

"Tch. We wouldn't need to do this if you didn't fall asleep."

"Sorry," Kageyama shrugged at Tsukishima's critical eye, suppressing a yawn. "You guys were saying?"

Tsukishima really couldn't suppress another annoyed tongue click before launching into his explanation again. This time, Kageyama was an attentive listener throughout it all, although he did have a penchant of occasionally daydreaming right in the middle of the conversation, doing some appropriate flat 'ooh's and 'ah's here and there.

Kageyama blinked at Tsukishima's flabbergasted face, as Tsukishima's eyebrow just couldn't stop twitching.

"You don't _know_?" Tsukishima asked, half in derision and half in disbelief.

"I didn't live in a place that taught me many things," Kageyama shrugged again, before poking Tsukishima with one scrawny finger. Tsukishima shuddered backwards. No one just casually poked a Duke's son in the arm. "So what _is_ a demon?"

Tsukishima gave in eventually, after Sugawara eventually looked content with the knots he'd tied the man up with.

"So people can become bad energy generators when they get sad," Kageyama echoed back flatly, and before Tsukishima could even cut in with exasperation to ask what, in fact, was a generator, did you even listen properly, the other boy once again lifted the staff he'd held, making it glow in a more deliberate ripple of indigo magic than before, quickly filling the whole carriage.

"Oh my goodness, Kageyama what are you doing?!" Sugawara scrambled up from the seat he'd been half reclining on, reaching out to try clasp Kageyama's hand before pulling back like he was burnt. "You don't know how to do much magic yet, you can hurt yourself!"

Kageyama assessed himself. "No, I'm fine. You said," Kageyama turned towards Tsukishima. "You said people with a lot of weird energy become demons?" Seeing Tsukishima unreactive, he poked Tsukishima again. "Hey. Tsukishima, I'm talking to you."

Tsukishima finally dared to breathe in, the thick wash of pure magic in his lungs like a second wave of oxygen to the brain. They called him a magician? What type of magician could do—

" _Tsukishima,_ " Kageyama's voice came with a relatively harsh poke on his arm, before sliding off the chair with a roll of the eyes. "Oh whatever. I'm going to try something."

With a flick of his finger, all the magic flooded into the bandit's mouth, and even if Tsukishima intellectually knew that the man wasn't actually ingesting anything, it looked overwhelmingly painful, especially since the man started to glow from the bones… and started screaming midway.

Tsukishima was suddenly _so glad_ he spent more money for a carriage doll. Who knew how much he'd have to bribe an actual human driver?

"What the heck are you doing, Kageya— Oh lord," Sugawara immediately backed away in whisper, as tiny wisps of black energy started to escape the man's pores, tiny threads that dissipated soon after leaving the skin. After a solid minute, Kageyama ran out of magic to pour into the man, his forehead dripping with sweat as he put a hand on the man's neck.

"Oh, the dirty feeling is gone. The title's changed too," Kageyama's eyes drifted on something that the both of them couldn't see. "That's much nicer," Kageyama merely sat back with a satisfied hum. Meanwhile, Tsukishima had brushed a hand a few millimetres away from the bandit's filthy looking shirt, wondering

_Akiteru, was this what you were investigating?_

Then Tsukishima's eyes slid upwards to rest on the boy in front of him.

_And did he say… title?_

"What are you up to, Nekomata?" Sugawara muttered under his breath, before cursing and politely pushing Tsukishima to the side. Reaching over, he opened the flap to talk to the carriage doll.

"Hey, can you go faster? As fast as you can go."

"--Acknowledged--"

The carriage suddenly lurched forward at twice its speed, and Sugawara settled down, pensive in thought.

"Kageyama?"

"Hmm?"

The other boy had been daydreaming again, staring at the carriage doll.

"Don't do that again. At least, not in front of anyone that's not us, okay?"

"…Alright."  


* * *

  
[Hisho, 12th Sector: 11:55 AM]

Yamaguchi nonchalantly followed the guy through the winding streets of the bazaar. Really, he thought a little nervous, no matter what his mom's informant said, wasn't this cloaked guy a little normal? Sure, the sun sign on his shoulder was a little glaring and bright and maybe not as fashionable as he thought the guy thought it was (it was actually kinda really ugly, and he could imagine Tsukki's scoff in his ear already, haha) but after he'd tracked down the guy at the East gate, all he'd done was go around the morning markets buying food.

Around the corner, another church tolled its bells. Since it rang in the twelfth sector, it was probably noon. Really, Yamaguchi thought with a little admiration, whoever would think of designing a city like a clock? Twelve churches to ring the bell for their hour. Hisho really was the best place to prepare for the Holy City, Yamaguchi nodded to himself.

It did make sleeping a little difficult though. He'd had a hard time falling asleep even near Tsukki's room back at the Capital, and Tsukki lived in one of the most sound insulated areas in his castle…

Yamaguchi perked up. Oh! That guy was moving!

Hmm… Critically eyeing his outfit, Yamaguchi put on a hat and took off his jacket, putting it in his bag. There. Then he slapped one of his grandmother's charms on himself ( _Yamaguchi dear_ , she would always cluck, _disguise is an art, not just a tool_ ). His skin turned bronze-ish then, and he nodded to himself as he examined his tanned fingers. Perfect.

He slipped around the corner and pretended to window shop as he followed the guy. This time, the man didn't just wind around the bazaar asking about fruits and stuff (though, of course, Yamaguchi had noted all the fruits he mentioned anyway, just in case it was a code), he headed towards the central district tower, where the mayoral house and government buildings were.

As the shopping district turned from bazaars to street stalls, and street stalls to shops with glittering glass windows laced with protective charms, the man suddenly stopped.

Yamaguchi, who was not a noob at this no matter what his grandpa said, did not stop with him but kept sauntering on, casually scratching his face as he passed his target, pressing a tiny talisman on his face that expanded his sight into a simultaneous 360 degree panorama.

However, there were two people who did stop when the man stopped. Yamaguchi had noticed them earlier, of course. One looked vaguely familiar (maybe Akiteru had left some of his team behind?) while the other was an unknown. To their credit, they stopped really naturally too, Yamaguchi thought, trying to hold it together because he always had a leg jiggling problem when he was nervous but _not now dammit don't look suspicious you idiot_.

To be honest, Yamaguchi had been kind of doubting his ma's information for a while. Apart from an atrocious taste in fashion, this guy with the cloak and the sun emblem seemed like any other guy who was living in the city. Many religious people attached flashy symbols on their clothing anyway. The guy (bearded, crow's feet around some kind looking beige eyes, heavy-set, an old military bearing) seemed like a normal shopper trying to whittle away the time.

The man adjusted his cloak. Dusted off the emblem on his shoulder.

Then he said something as he examined his sleeves. A word.

Akiteru's man, who had been enquiring gently about some flowers with the florist, suddenly stiffened. His eyes glazed over a little, and he started walking away. Simultaneously, the other guy also jerked to a stop in the middle of flipping over a newspaper, putting it back down to stand and walk towards the man.

They both stopped in front of the cloaked man faux natural, a little too stiff in their casual slouch to look normal. The man he was following smiled at them, _so gently_ , and Yamaguchi got the chills, his hands feeling so cold when he saw that the man's eyes were staring at the back of _his_ head. Assessing.

No, Yamaguchi started sweating. No. Keep walking, Look natural. Smile at the shopkeeper. Good, staying natural. Say good morning back at that elderly couple. Doff your hat. Keep walking. You came here to shop for your master. A bag of dried, honeyed lemons. Where was the sweets shop? Yamaguchi looked around for a sweets shop, continuing when he didn't see any around that seemed of good quality.

His vision was still 360 degrees, the world impossibly wide as he told himself to breathe, breathe like normal.

The man's eyes turned away from him to murmur something to the two men standing still in front of him, and they nodded and obliged, walking ahead of him into one of the darker alleyways leading off the main street. The man soon disappeared after them.

Yamaguchi knew, he wasn't, he wasn't _safe_ yet, since people who have mastered physical boosting could track a person through walls, identify a set of footsteps from two streets away, flash in front of you from three hundred metres faster than you could even _blink_.

Most physical boosters were martial artists, and it would usually be pretty easy to guess if someone was good at it or not, but the man's body have been covered with a cloak. Yamaguchi didn't know. He couldn't see. What if, what if he—

His heart was pounding in his ears when Yamaguchi stopped in front of a sweets store and examined packaged sweets in their jars.

_For Tsukki._

Yamaguchi squeezed his eyes shut before turning around with determination, taking off his jacket in one fluid motion and tucking it into his bag. Ducking behind a large shop display, he shook out a ball of rags he kept in his bag into an old, wrinkly shirt and pants. Shrugging them both on, he changed his skin colour to be one shade paler than Tsukki's, adjusted his stance into a slouch, and walked to the end of the alleyway. 

Then with a deep breath, he went in.  


* * *

  
[Hisho, South Gateway: 12:10 PM]

"What's all of this?"

At Tsukishima's bewildered question, Kageyama stuck his head out the window too and blinked at the sight of the many empty carriages abandoned on the road, blocking any further passage.

 _"Is it like a carriage pile up or something?"_ Tanaka mused.

 _"Dude, look at that carriage. Its gold trimmed and stuff, it looks rich,"_ Kinoshita pointed out, and Kageyama searched through the tens of carriages before letting his eyes rest upon the rich one Kinoshita had found. The walls were rain-streaked from time and weather, but it looked like it had been cream coloured before, with gold curlicues and similar velvet curtains to theirs.

No one would abandon a carriage like that.

 _"I have a bad feeling of this, Kageyama,"_ Yachi said worriedly.

 _"It'll be fine, Yachi!"_ Hinata reassured. _"Anyway, we need to find Yamaguchi anyway, so we don't have a choice! What if this Yamaguchi dies?"_

The dumbass had a point.

Kageyama opened the door and jumped out, bag and staff in hand, and started walking forward.

"Hey, Kageyama! Wait up!"

With a quick sound of some cloth rustling, Sugawara flashed next to him, quickly catching his hand in his. Kageyama looked at their joined hands in disgust.

"I'm not a kid," Kageyama said flatly.

"Yes you are," Sugawara sang back.

"No I'm not," Kageyama replied.

Sugawara looked down at him with a raised eyebrow, and Kageyama sunk into silence with Hinata's laughter ringing in his ears.

_"Ahahahahahahahahahhahahaha—ow! Yachi, what was that for?"_

Dumbass.

 _"Oh man,"_ Suga said fondly, _"I totally see you as a wayward duckling or something, don't I?"_

Kageyama scowled even harder.

"Oi," Tsukishima's annoyed voice called out to them from behind. They obligingly stopped as Tsukishima gave the carriage doll some instructions regarding their captive and to park a little inside the forest before jogging to join them. In the next few minutes they all examined the tens of empty carriages together, before Sugawara squinted, a motion familiar to Kageyama by then.

"What do you see?" Kageyama asked, still trying to subtly tug his hand free.

"...There's a soldier camp in front of the gate," Sugawara replied. Kageyama looked forward. Even by Kageyama's naked eyes he could see the low walls of Hisho (nowhere as high as the one surrounding the Capital City, towering white ones underneath the moonlight in the brief time he'd been there). Nor was it the fancy carved reliefs of the holy city they left. The walls were a practical, faded yellow sandstone that seemed warm and welcoming in the sunlight. Now that Sugawara had mentioned it though, there was a rather large group camped before one of the gates.

"What colour is their flag?" Tsukishima asked.

"Red and gold, black trim."

"Imperial soldiers," Tsukishima frowned. "Why are they here?"

Sugawara continued squinting, shading his eyes with his hands. "They seem to be stopping people from entering the city."

"Tch. We'll find another way in."

Sugawara promptly slung a resigned Kageyama in a fireman's carry. "Over the wall?" Sugawara asked, as Kageyama stared blankly into the back of Sugawara's cloak as he lay draped like a sad sack of potatoes. Tsukishima raised an eyebrow at them.

"I'm good enough at jumping with boosts on," Tsukishima replied. "I'll follow you."

"Okay, keep up," Sugawara teased, Kageyama tensing when he subconsciously felt energy flooding Sugawara's body. The next second, they were tearing through the air, with Tsukishima lagging a little behind. When they got near, Kageyama felt a two presences light up just like Sugawara, flying quickly towards them.

"Entering is prohibit—ugh," one of the presences fell back after Sugawara threw something at him, while the second retaliated against Sugawara's blow with a large metal clang. It was Tsukishima who engaged the second when Sugawara flew past them, his sword ringing when two blades slid past each other.

"Intruders!" The other man gasped, as Tsukishima softened his grip so the other sword slid straight past him, allowing him to flit away to tail Sugawara again. "Don't let them enter the city!"

Sugawara's toes found small ledges in the brick of the wall, jumping up like a mountain goat. In less than a few seconds, they'd reached the top of the wall, Sugawara turning around to watch Tsukishima's slower ascent with weapons at the ready, as Tsukishima had to use both his hands and feet to clamber up.

Still on Sugawara's shoulder, Kageyama stilled, raising his head up to look at the city in front of him in confusion.

"Hey. Put me down," Kageyama pushed at Sugawara, and without looking, Sugawara complied. Ignoring the slight dizziness from blood rushing out of his head, Kageyama carefully breathed in.

 _"…Something's strange,"_ Asahi murmured.

 _"Kageyama,"_ Noya said, voice serious. _"My gut says there's something really dangerous. Be careful."_

Hearing that, Kageyama tensed. Even though Noya mostly fooled around, whenever his voice did give a warning, it had always been real.

 _"I know what's strange!"_ Hinata yelled after a few seconds. _"Kageyama. The smells, the smells don't match!"_ A pause. _"The sounds too!"_

What Kageyama looked at, as he looked down from the walls of the city, was a nice, placid town. Sun soaking into white buildings with religious reliefs or stained glass windows, grass a little yellow and dried, leaning overgrown heads onto warm pavement.

What Kageyama smelt was the damp quiet of night time, dew and moist air clinging onto eaves in the quiet refreshing way of early evening.

Behind him, the world was a cacophony of noise as Sugawara guarded his back and watched over Tsukishima climbing the wall quickly, fending off the quicker members of the imperial guards. In front of his eyes, a cute couple laughed together in a beautiful image of harmony as they left their house, hand in hand. What he heard in front was the quiet rustle of trees and the hoot of an owl.

The more he looked, the more the world bent, fractured. Slowly, in front of Kageyama's eyes, houses split into two, then four, then six, seeing them at dawn, in the harsh reflection of the afternoon, in the darkness of midnight.

 _"What the heck is happening?"_ Yachi quivered.

Ennoshita gave a calm answer of his own. _"Kageyama's staff is glowing. Your magic is reacting to something, Kageyama. What are you doing?"_

Kageyama wanted to blink now, wanted to step away, because he didn't know, and he tried to unclench his fingers as the world continued to split in front of his eyes, of the same scenes, over and over and over and over again—

His heartbeat stopped.

A laugh in his ear. A woman's voice, airy, divine.

_I knew you would entertain me_

"Now!" Sugawara yelled in his ear. An arm around his waist as Sugawara tugged him straight into the whirling, colourful mess of spatial reality, before everything _snapped_ back into place and Kageyama finally breathed out.

What was that?

The happy couple that left the house was suddenly audible, their chatter a cheerful matter about what they wanted for lunch. Someone's wind chimes jangled in the distance, and the feel of the wind made sense – a warm, dry affair that blew Kageyama's hair back.

Kageyama turned to look at Sugawara.

"Did you feel that?" Kageyama asked.

Sugawara, who'd been focusing on the wall behind them just in case any of the guards followed them in, quickly looked at Kageyama, giving him a quick up and down before his eyes quickly tracked the leaking blue from Kageyama's staff.

"What did you feel, Kageyama?"

Kageyama's mouth opened and closed, thoughts racing in his head in a huge jumble of potential wording. Remembering what Suga had told him in his past life ( _breathe, Kageyama. You don't look like you think much, but you do, behind that blank stare of yours so breathe and have a go!_ ) Kageyama managed to stumble out, "…The smell wasn't matching. It was this," Kageyama waved a hand around their sun-drenched surroundings, "but it smelt like night-time."

"What? Wait, what do you mean?"

Sugawara's blatant concern drew in Tsukishima, who had still been catching his breath. When Tsukishima heard Kageyama, he'd blatantly rolled his eyes, turning on his heel to march down the street.

"We can figure whatever you meant when we find Yamaguchi," Tsukishima said curtly. "Let's go to my family's villa. We can start finding Yamaguchi from there."

Sugawara rolled his eyes back at him, before turning back to Kageyama.

"Try and explain it to me." He flashed Kageyama a grin. "I trust your instincts, you know?"

And Kageyama swallowed a lump in his throat, because yes, he did know. He knew it all too well.

But he cleared his throat anyway as they started following Tsukishima. "The city looked weird…" Kageyama started, with Sugawara an attentive, thoughtful listener on the side.  


* * *

  
[Hisho, 9th District: 12:45 PM]

"What is this?" Yamaguchi murmured to himself, as he tried not to feel too on edge being in the slums of the ninth. The poorer folk tended to drift to the ninth district, and it wasn't as bad as it could be considering the slums of other cities, but pickpockets and less savoury types ran a little more rampant than other places and Yamaguchi's neck was tingling nonstop. Was someone watching him? Was he just paranoid?

The man he'd been following had marched the two people he'd enthralled all the way through three districts, stopping at a dirty manhole in front of the less upkept homes. Yamaguchi, who had resorted to slinking over roofs to be safe, had quickly ducked down and watched as the man had scanned for any followers or people on the empty street he'd been on, and since it was lunch time the area was especially empty.

Lunch time, Yamaguchi's stomach growled at him unhappily, and the tiny lizard part of his brain that had never focused on serious matters like _stalking a potential clue for murder of Tsukki's parents dear lord_ wished that he was eating that delicious sandwich he saw when passing the food stalls of the eleventh district. Bacon and egg and lettuce and… yum. He smelt cheese too, just perfectly warmed to melt into the bread—

CLANG

Yamaguchi jolted to attention as the man quickly tugged open the manhole, pushed the two enthralled men in before ducking inside himself, the manhole quickly slamming shut after him.

The tingling on his neck didn't stop, and Yamaguchi paid the feeling heed. Nothing beats listening to your gut in this sneaky business.

A little mournfully, Yamaguchi pulled out his third last invisibility charm, and slapped it on. Shimmering out of existence, Yamaguchi quickly shimmied down the building he was on, and approached the manhole cover.

Like any manhole cover, there were metal grooves designed on it so it was hard to slip with a hole in the middle for air to displace itself, and as Yamaguchi crouched down slowly to examine the cover a little more…

_EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK_

There was an eye staring straight out of the small hole in the middle of the manhole cover.

The beige eye was unblinking as it stared upwards for anyone to pass over staring straight through Yamaguchi's neck. Yamaguchi hair rose a few seconds too late.

That was so creepy! It, it was dark, and then there's an _eye_ , and—

Yamaguchi shuddered. He hated it when suspicious men were _paranoid_ suspicious men!

The invisibility charm lasted for ten minutes or so, so Yamaguchi really wasn't worried about it running out of time as he froze, barely daring to breathe and praising himself for listening to his gut, his gut banzai, it knew the best of what to do, hahahahahaha _oh my god_.

After two minutes or so, the beige eye blinked and retreated. Small metal clanks told Yamaguchi that he was descending into whatever darkness the manhole cover led to, and Yamaguchi finally let out a small breath of relief of _another close shave passed_.

Hysterical mental laughing aside, he really needed to follow the guy though. Tsukki and Akiteru needed him.

His fingers shook.

(He really didn't want to, but for _Tsukki and his family and Akiteru and justice and lunch and all things good—_ )

When he was sure that the guy had probably reached the bottom, and probably walked far enough away to not notice the brief brightness that would come from him lifting the manhole cover for him to enter too, Yamaguchi held his breath and quickly entered, lowering the manhole cover softly and carefully looking down to scan for people as he made a soundless descent on the slippery metal ladder.

Down, down, towards the underground.

At the very bottom, Yamaguchi wrapped his feet in cloth, thick so that no-one could identify his footprints. He bent down to examine the slimy floor himself – left. The three of them went left.

Ignoring the river of waste on the side, and the stink, and the horribleness (and the suspicious gloopy stuff that hung from the ceiling and _that thing that just dripped on his shoulder aaaah_ ), Yamaguchi bravely stepped forward, bolstered by the knowledge he still was invisible for a few more minutes yet.

The tracks were relatively easy to follow now – the slime on the floor, and the fact that the guy had apparently stopped trying to hide his tracks, made tracking him all the easier. Down the waste tunnel to a service tunnel, a service tunnel to a small storage room, a small storage room to a crevice in the wall, the crevice in the wall leading into a natural cave system…

Yamaguchi gaped, eyes wide when something in him screamed at him to look up.

What was _that?_

He remembered reading about this sorta thing in books. Wasn't, wasn't this impossible?

Shadows writhed across the ceiling, dark flickers streaming across the room in a steady flow around stalactites into the darkness of who knows where, and Yamaguchi swallowed. Really hard.

 _You're so lucky I like you Tsukki_ , Yamaguchi bitterly thought as he edged on.

Soon, past a few more corners and following the tracks of the three men, Yamaguchi paused.

He smelt… something metallic. The smell of—

He quickly ducked behind a rather large stalagmite when something sailed towards him, landing heavily and rolling past his feet. In the darkness where the head had been thrown from, Yamaguchi heard a gentleman's laughter, a polite and soft thing.

"My lord, I hope you enjoy this offering," the man said gently with a smile in his voice, as Yamaguchi stared blindly at the decapitated head of Akiteru's agent, still leaking blood that flowed black in rivulets that seemed to shine in the dim lighting.

…Yamaguchi wanted to cry when he started to hear satanic chanting.

_This was way past his pay-check._  


* * *

  
[Hisho, 1st District: 12:30 PM]

"What do you mean _you don't know?_ "

"Young master!" A servant gibbered, practically grovelling on his knees. "Yamaguchi usually heads out into the city after breakfast, and comes back late. We really don't know where he is right now! He reports going to different districts every day!"

Tsukishima clicked his tongue in disgust.

"Tch. _Useless_. Show me to his room. We'll wait there until he comes back."

"Right away sir, this way, sir!"

The servant rapidly bowed his way backwards and lead them to a less extravagant hallway than where they'd stood before, and while Tsukishima walked on ahead, all Kageyama could think of was how familiar this all was. Whenever he'd picked up his phone in the middle of a reunion he'd immediately scowl ( _that's his work-face!_ Yamaguchi once whispered to him) and snap a quick 'What? Tch, _useless_ ' into the phone before hissing out a quick, rapid-fire series of instructions and slamming the phone on the table when he was done.

Hinata had once complained to Tsukishima when he'd been tutoring them. _"Tsukishima!"_ Hinata had finally yelled, springing up to his feet and pointing an accusing pen at Tsukishima's irritated face. _"Would it kill you to be nicer for once?"_

 _"Tch,_ " Tsukishima had dismissed, _"I'll be nice to you when you deserve it."_

Golden eyes slowly slid down towards the test papers they'd been reviewing, and the large, red bolded 42 on the top one. Hinata flushed, and Kageyama just bent down his head and continued scribbling lines and lines of calculus on his exercise book because Ukai had handed down the ultimatum – if their marks don't go up, _no more practice._

Kageyama's hand scribbled even faster.

" _At least your other half is doing his work,_ " Tsukishima said in that dry, _done_ way of his, everything in his bearing screaming _idiots idiots idiots idiots idiots_. Kageyama could feel Hinata's gaze on his head like a press of betrayal, and Hinata immediately flopped down next to him.

 _"Kageyama, don't tell me you're going to take this lying down!"_ Hinata had whined. Kageyama just looked up with a haunted expression on his face. He couldn't remember the equation to calculate the last part of this function.

The paper was whisked out of his hands with a _'tch'_ , quickly scanned and scribbled upon. _"It's this equation. Everything else was right, miraculously,"_ Tsukishima added.

Hinata peered at the paper too, and gasped. _"You're up to question ten? Crap!"_ The orange blur on the side of his vision quickly sat back down across from him, bent over his own paper studiously.

And now, Sugawara sidled up to Tsukishima.

"You can probably be nicer to your staff you know? People work better when they're happy!" Sugawara said easily in a light laugh, hands behind his head.

Tsukishima gave him one irritated eye.

"I'll be nice when they stop being idiots," Tsukishima snapped back a short reply.

Kageyama beamed at the response, and Tsukishima sent him a disturbed look, putting Sugawara solidly between the two of them.

"We're here, young master," the servant who'd been studiously ignoring them stopped at a small, nondescript wooden door. Tsukishima nodded in dismissal, and the servant high-tailed it out of there as they stepped through.

Yamaguchi's room was neat for the most part, except for the utter paper explosion that was his desk.

"Kageyama, go sleep," Sugawara urged, patting the bed. "You didn't sleep a wink last night, you must be tired."

…In Yamaguchi's bed?

 _"I wouldn't mind!"_ Yamaguchi soothed reassuringly. _"…Probably."_

"I'll have the servants set up a guest room," came Tsukishima's irritated answer, but Sugawara shook his head.

"We don't know who to trust right now. It'll be better to stick together if we can. I'm going to scout the city for a bit, and I'll rest a little easier knowing Kageyama's with you."

A glance at Tsukishima's arms and bearing acknowledged his past training.

"I'll just call for some more bedding then," Tsukishima replied, heading to the door and waving over a maid. In less than a minute, a few servants had already lugged inside the room fluffy blankets enough to cover Yamaguchi's bed five times and over. "They've also prepared a bath, so go if you wish."

So after the best bath he'd had for the past twelve years (which Asahi, an onsen connoisseur, had gushed way too much about) Kageyama quickly fell asleep on Yamaguchi's bed feeling no guilt at all for not contributing to the _find Yamaguchi effort_ , because despite Sugawara's lessons, he wasn't quite literate yet. Tsukishima settled down on the dingy wooden chair to sort through the notes Yamaguchi had, waving off Sugawara with an _"it's in code"_. After a brief conversation, Tsukishima passed over a simple map of the city.

Map in hand, Sugawara smoothed down Kageyama's damp hair before hopping over to the window.

"I'll be back at night-time," he promised over his shoulder. "Around eight?"

"Be careful," Kageyama murmured through a gap between the blankets, and when he bothered to open his eyes a sliver, Sugawara's smile was a soft one.

"Won't let anyone harm a hair on my head," Sugawara reassured.

Then he was gone, and Kageyama dove himself back into the blankets, wiggling into a corner, falling asleep to the sound of flipping pages, the smell of clean cotton and the vague, nostalgic presence of an annoyed Tsukishima.  


* * *

  
[Hisho, Underground Cave System: 4:24 PM]

Yamaguchi basically hadn't _breathed_ for the last few hours. He'd used his second-last invisibility charm to sneak into the chamber with the man and find a decent hiding place that had a vantage point to see what was happening at least.

Tsukki had given him an expensive recording device that he'd bought at an exhibition for exotic goods from the far north; with the press of a button the device would be able to record something in front of its flat glass for an hour. Yamaguchi had carefully wedged it between two rocks, trained onto the man who'd been chanting at some sort of hulking stone shadow for the _longest time_.

When the hour had passed and the tiny device had run out of time to record, Yamaguchi tucked it back into his inside pocket and hunkered down, wondering if this was enough to report back to Tsukki with.

It was a large cave, with stalagmites and stalactites reaching for each other in various spiney shapes across the floor into a darkness that Yamaguchi couldn't see through. Damp and chilly, Yamaguchi's toes had frozen to his boots long ago. The man stood vaguely at the very edge of Yamaguchi's sight, just in the dark enough that he couldn't see the sun on his cloak anymore but still alright enough to see that he waved his arms around a lot. His voice echoed too, this strange chanting language that Yamaguchi sometimes felt the edges of, with power that siphoned the streams of black energy flowing on the city down into something in his hands.

To be frank, Yamaguchi was _miserable_.

He wanted his ma. He wanted warm food. He wanted some dry socks because he'd stopped on some puddles when he'd been scrabbling in desperate quiet for a hiding spot, but most of all he wanted his best friend, because Tsukki had this way of scoffing at everything and everyone, giving pithy remarks that kind or unkind, always made Yamaguchi laugh.

Yamaguchi shrunk into a ball, breathing slow and heartbeat in a fake calm as he gripped his shirt into a sweaty mess as the man finally stopped chanting, closing whatever he was holding and moving towards the exit, footsteps fading away back towards civilisation.

Lady Tsukishima had pinched his cheeks all the way up til the day she'd disappeared, dignified face always warm and friendly for her son's clumsy manservant. "Be careful, Yamaguchi!" She'd laugh as she calculated and ticked off the family accounts, making sure everything was working fine. Tsukishima got his face more from his mother than his father – Akiteru had the softer planes of Duke Tsukishima's diplomatic face. Lady Tsukishima had all the angles that Tsukki had inherited.

Yamaguchi stood behind the doorway, frozen when he recognised the people kneeling in front of his best friend.

_"This is all we could find for now."_

Tsukki's face when their investigators had given him her decapitated finger.

Yamaguchi slowly uncurled himself from his position and waited out his pins and needles. The he crept up towards the ritual area, carefully skirting dead bodies and random ends, jotting down anything he could see on a notepad (blood, weird symbols – copying a few that looked important, large statue, the dark energy, the smell of burnt herbs) before quickly tucking all of that into his pocket and scuttling towards the exit himself.

The day still wasn't over yet. Now that he's found something, he needed to follow through and find _everything_!

More, there was still more to find!

Yamaguchi set a stiff upper lip. He won't fail the Tsukishimas!

Yep, hup, come on!  


* * *

  
[Hisho, 4th District: 6:00 PM]

Sugawara ignored the bells tolling for the new hour as he strolled down the streets, ticking off all the faces he passed against the portrait that Tsukishima had shown him back in his villa. The night had already started to fall, the world in a dimmed glow that Asahi had always gushed about whenever they wandered the gardens back in Chou, saying it was the most beautiful hour before dark, when the fireflies were only starting to light themselves up.

Nekomata must have known something was up if he sent him to Duke Tsukishima. By now, had been two months since Chou had been invaded. Duke Tsukishima was also murdered two months ago.

Akiteru being sent on an investigation on demons. That large, unchained arm crashing over Chou.

Could it...?

No, Sugawara shook his head, passing yet another smithy filled with carefully crafted religious paraphernalia. Little glowing statues looking jolly as they held gourds, necklaces crafted in the shapes of crosses for protection. A young boy exiting - nope, not Yamaguchi. Sugawara continued onwards.

No, it was impossible.

Sugawara eventually sighed. As Daichi always said, he always worried too much. He should just face the problems he's facing now, like how every step in this city made his instincts murmur _danger be careful_ at him, coupled with Kageyama's warning. Kageyama wasn't one to lie, and he was a sharp kid. If what he said was true... it was no wonder that Yamaguchi Tadashi suddenly cut contact with Tsukishima. 

Time magic. Ugh.

He was quickly distracted from his thoughts when he saw a small crow charm being displayed at a store. 

While they were travelling, Kageyama had always smiled at any crows they passed. When asked, he'd called them 'cute'. He'd probably like this, Sugawara thought, thinking of the extremely sad amount of belongings Kageyama had. 

"Hey, excuse me," Sugawara called as he pushed open the door to the shop. "How much for that crow charm you have on display there?"  


* * *

  
[Hisho, 9th District Guardhouse: 7:48 PM]

"Sorry, kid," a gruff voice sounded in Yamaguchi's ear, and Yamaguchi stared downwards at the blade in his ribcage thinking belatedly, right, there were two guards, wasn't there?

He fell forwards, onto the book, over the pedestal, blood dripping down his hands, over the runes, over evidence that could absolutely prove Akiteru's innocence – and not have the ability to do anything about it. His hands dropped all his charms and rested on the book now, fingers denting the pages as he pleaded, as he thought in his head

He couldn't die here

_He couldn't die here._

He had to tell Tsukki, he had to

Reverse

If only he could go _back…_

"Idiot, how could you let him make a blood offering?!"

"I didn't realise the casket was open," came the nervous reply from the one who'd stabbed him.

Yamaguchi, eyes open, dying—

and the book underneath him glowed red as time started to unwind  


* * *

  
[Hisho, 1st District: 7:49 PM]

Kageyama shot up from his casual lounging on the bed, one hand grasping his staff, the other diving at Tsukishima. The other boy crashed down underneath him with a startled yelp and a flurry of papers, as Kageyama grasped his arm tightly, hovering protectively over him as something instinctual pulled something deep within his chest, his staff spiralling out webs of light into a cocoon that enclosed them in a bubble of blinding, suffocating magic.

 _"Wha-"_ Tsukishima's sound was garbled through the rush in his ears, but Kageyama wasn't paying attention. His eyes trailed in panic up to the window.

"SUGAWARA!" Kageyama yelled. The world, he could see the world melting at the edges, and there still wasn't any figure that flashed onto their windowsill. Kageyama sucked in a deep breath and screamed. "SUGA!"

"Kageyama!" Sugawara appeared, swinging through the window with inhumane speed, fingertips using the ledge as a centrifugal focus to launch himself at the two. In the moments between their hands, the world seemed to slow. Stop. With only a few millimetres between them, Sugawara hung in the air motionless, face unnaturally still. Light, breath, air, all froze outside of Kageyama's protective cocoon, and Tsukishima could only watch with a muted sense of shock when Sugawara's prone form started to recede without any help, as if playing a record backwards. A few millimetres turned to centimetres, faster and faster until Sugawara flew backwards, swinging impossibly back outside.

Tsukishima thought he saw something crack in Kageyama's eyes. The unfamiliar, strange boy didn't change his expression at all, but there was a sort of fathomless desperation when the other watched Sugawara leave, an expression of raw despair he hadn't expected to see. The other boy had always been calm, always been collected.

( _A calm voice, boyish and sure. He stood, bewildered, any acerbic quip dying in confusion when he hears "…there is no better person to call a friend than Tsukishima Kei."_ )

Now Kageyama dragged Tsukishima up with an arm, the other holding the staff just as Sugawara's fingertips left the windowsill. There's something there, Tsukishima found, and something was starting to make sense in his mind when he watched the next few minutes unfurl, as Kageyama did something a magician could never do.

_"No."_

That was all of the whisper that came out of Kageyama's mouth before the blue wash of magic stopped being emitted by the staff. Instead, it blazed through his skin, through his eyes, a wave washing out when he breathed out and glared straight at the window. The whole, unfocused blue mass pouring out suddenly found purpose, diving out the window and around the corner to someplace Tsukishima couldn't see.

And while the world shook apart around them, Sugawara came flying through the window again, only this time he wasn't yelling for Kageyama, but instead came through in a sharp leap from the windowsill, landing in a controlled crouch in front of the boy.

"Kageyama, stop. I'm fine now, stop." Sugawara only managed so much before another wash of blue magic covered him in extra layers now that he was within reach, weighing him down until he was bent down and gasping underneath Kageyama's magic, roiling to wrap him up further.

Tsukishima suddenly found that the fingers digging into his arm had started to lose force and a lot more wet, as his sleeve started dripping water onto the floor.

No, Tsukishima realised.

Those fingers were dripping water from some unnameable source, beads larger and clearer than any sweat he'd seen sloughing off Kageyama's arm to splash against the floor. The fingers had become transparent, the nails, the fingers, the frail bones underneath wavering into a see-through quality and something in Tsukishima _clicked_ in comprehension.

_Oh._

The blue magic whirled around the three of them, and even with the large pressure of the red vortex around them shredding the room into pieces, the three of them stood safe and untouched.

"Stop using your body as a conduit," Tsukishima ordered now, standing straight. "Use the staff in your hand. You don't need to save anyone now, we're all here."

Kageyama's fingers on his arm twitched, half melted into his sleeve. 

" _Now,_ " Tsukishima snapped, giving his arm a shake in emphasis. "Look, you're a sage, right? Don't you know the risks of a sage using too much uncontrolled power? You'll transform, you'll _become your element_ , use your staff _now_!"

"But if I do," Kageyama rasped in reply, unseeing, past Sugawara's struggling form underneath all the protective magic he'd thrown at him, past the dissolving room, and past Tsukishima himself. Tsukishima could see through the strands of his black hair now, and his dark blue eyes had gained a sort of ethereal glow, "but if I do, will you die?"

"That's ridiculous," Tsukishima replied, annoyed. "You've got us overprotected, if anything."

Kageyama blinked and looked around.

"Ah," was the next thing that came out of his mouth, a flat thing out of touch with the situation. "You're right."

Slowly, the blue waves calmed into something more shield-like, and Sugawara was gently set down gasping onto the floor. The fingers on Tsukishima's sleeve slowly solidified back into normal, human looking fingers, as Kageyama's hair regained a solid black sheen. 

The staff shone in his hand, weathering them from the outside. In the short while it took for Sugawara to recover, the world had pieced itself together around them, the red whirl winding down slowly back into place – Yamaguchi's room.

Without blankets, without Tsukishima's hard work in organising the damn mess of papers.

The sun was rising in the sky.

Kageyama fully retracted his magic just in time to leave himself undefended against a very angry Sugawara.

"Kageyama! Never do that again, you hear me?"

Kageyama blinked. Sugawara's face was a little too close for comfort.

"By the confused look on his face," Tsukishima said a little snidely, "I don't think he even knows what you mean. Also, what happened?"

"Time magic," Sugawara said as he gave Kageyama a hard hug.

"I see," Tsukishima stated, mind quickly accepting this new fact and cataloguing it into the situation. "It's very early," Tsukishima continued. "Yamaguchi never skips breakfast. This is the best time to find him, and we can debrief together a little later."

Sugawara just sighed. " _Later_. Everything is always _later_. Ugh, come on, Kageyama."

With a quickness in his steps, Tsukishima walked out the door and surprised a maid into screaming when he greeted her. After quickly summoning a confused butler, they quickly headed out to the eleventh district markets where Yamaguchi, apparently, always bought his food.

They found Yamaguchi there, sending off a woman in a black cloak.

"Bye!" Yamaguchi called to the woman, his freckled face comically stilling when he turned around and saw the three of them. 

Or, more exactly,

"Tsukki!" Yamaguchi exclaimed, mouth wide and eyes bugged out. "Tsukki? Wait, Tsukki?" Rubbing his eyes and glancing at them again, Yamaguchi pinched his arm. "I'm not hallucinating, right? Tsukki, why are you here, and not in the Capital? We agreed we couldn't leave Akiteru alone, right? Did something happen? Oh no, are they going to kill him? Was I too late?"

Yamaguchi's babble was quickly stopped when Tsukishima walked forward and slapped a hand on his mouth.

"You speak too much."

"Ah right, sorry Tsukki!" Yamaguchi replied, muffled.

And this. This had never changed.

Despite being a little overwhelmed by everything that had just happened, Kageyama couldn't help but think of Kiyoko's tablet inside Sugawara's bag, and proudly think to her.

_Hey, Kiyoko. I found another one._

Kiyoko would probably tilt her head like so, eyes giving him a warm reply.

"Hmm, really?" her eyes would say.

Kageyama nodded.

_Yamaguchi this time._

Kiyoko gave him a small secretive smile.

Sugawara, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi turned his head in a sort of paled shock when Tsukishima whispered in his ear. Obviously something to do with who they were.

"Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-you're?!" Yamaguchi managed to stutter out before slapping his mouth shut and doing this awkward shuffle forward. "I'm, I'm so honoured to meet the two of you! With your help, I'm sure Tsukki will get justice! Thank you so much for doing this for us!"

"Tch," Tsukishima said. "They don't deserve so much thanks."

Yamaguchi glanced back at his friend. "Sorry, Tsukki. But still," Yamaguchi smiled with a sort of sincere, nervous energy, "a thanks from me then! I just found a lead, and I always get nervous when I tail people, so it's a relief, really," Yamaguchi laughed.

Kageyama smiled back.

Tsukishima's social skills were now attached back onto him. Things were looking up already.

"I'm glad to meet you," Kageyama shook Yamaguchi's hand. "Let's be friends."

Behind him, Tsukishima promptly turned around to narrow his eyes at the pair.

"Dinner time, let's get something to eat before we dive into the nitty gritty," Sugawara suggested, pointing towards the food stalls of the eleventh district.

"What, dinner?" Yamaguchi's face went a little scrunched with confusion, glancing around at the clear, sunny morning around him.

Sugawara laughed a touch bitterly.

"Hah. It's a long story."  


* * *

  
_Extra_

In another world, in another life, Kageyama sat in bed, staring at his hands. He'd recovered so well, he'd tried his best. Did everything Hinata had recommended and more, carefully did the routine his specialist had tailored to him. He talked to Suga for friendly advice, and found he hadn't needed to use the therapist he recommended after all.

Kageyama carefully tried to clench his hands. Two of his fingers refused to move, stiffly folding straight. A third on his other hand trembled with exertion or something else he couldn't name, uncontrollable in its shaking.

In this other world, the room was filled with friends. His teams from high-school, uni, professional. Suga's supportive _'anything I can help?'_ Daichi's promise _'we'll get to the bottom of this.'_ Sai's, his best current spiker, strong declaration _'we can overcome anything.'_ Hinata's blazing determination, _'I won't let you fall. You're not allowed to.'_ Hinata, small and trying to face the world for him. _'Never allowed, you hear me?'_ Different people crowded the room, all concerned, all pushing to support him.

Tsukishima half out the doorway, head ducked over a phone as he sent something. Kageyama's own phone giving a short vibration in response.

Later, Kageyama gingerly tapped open the file and realised it was a carefully structured recommendation for rehabilitation. Ordered by cost, reputation, fame, specialities, geography and availability. Little anecdotes on what they've done, reviews by previous patients. Unsigned, email empty save for the attachment and would practically be anonymous if not for the email of the sender.

He knew what Tsukishima wanted. But Kageyama, on that night, couldn't stop himself. He replied a short, _'thank you'_.

Predictably, Tsukishima didn't reply. But that, Kageyama rolled over in his bed, was alright. He'd go over the list with Hinata later, he thought drowsily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's the next chapter. It took a little longer because I typed out a few thousand words, promptly deleted it and started again haha. Sorry it's such an in-between chapter, people had to go to places and third person is difficult to wrangle sometimes  
> A few chapters ago, a dear reader asked for an update schedule. What I will promise is one chapter at least a month. Otherwise, updates can be sporadic according to real life things, or writing motivation.  
> But otherwise, I have most of the story plotted, so it's just the path to getting there that's taking a long time (i.e. sometimes sections just burst forth and but I have a goal for where the chap will end so it gets longer and longer...)  
> Thank you for your comments, last time. It really brightened up my day to know someone is reading this ^^. Next up, Kageyama and Yamaguchi.


	8. The Meeting of Yamaguchi Tadashi

Friendship with Yamaguchi had always been… _easy_ , for lack of a better word. Once Yamaguchi found that Kageyama was actually quite a decent listener (when dragged away into social situations devoid of volleyball) and realised _yes_ , his face actually that grumpy and _no_ , he wasn't judging, Yamaguchi and Kageyama had gradually built up a rapport through years and years of conversations.

He was not as comforting as Suga, as enigmatic as Tsukishima, as motherly as Yachi, nor did he have that high octane energy that came with Hinata's presence.

But Yamaguchi had been a solid presence of _neutrality_ , of knowing that if Kageyama called, Yamaguchi would be there, unassuming, willing to hear everything out without any sort of expectation on what he should do, on what he should be. Yamaguchi had been one of others that Kageyama would drift to, whenever he'd been around parties and social groups, to talk to and hang around with since he'd always been a low key sort of guy. In his own words, he'd once described himself as somewhat 'plain and uninteresting, you know?'

He'd said that with a sheepish laugh as he rubbed the back of his head. "Out of us third years, I'm not as smart as Tsukki, and I don't have Hinata's amazing athletics and I don't think anyone can really copy that pinpoint accuracy of yours, Kageyama. I know I worked hard with my serves and my receives but, umm," he scratched his head. "That's just the story of my life, you know?"

Kageyama paused in the middle of sucking dry the milk box in his hand, quirking an eyebrow at Yamaguchi. After a hard day of practice with serving, the both of them were chilling on the steps to the Karasuno gymnasium, the hum of cicadas nearly deafening in the humid, summer air.

"Like," Yamaguchi expounded. "I've never been the naturally gifted one. I can't really name any strong talent I have. I tried piano," Yamaguchi ticked off his fingers, "but apparently I lack musicality, and then I tried art, but all my drawings are kind of, err, strangely angular."

He sighed, and ticked off another finger. "Whenever girls approach me, they always want to talk about Tsukki, but that's just because Tsukki is actually really cool so that's okay, but also doesn't that mean I just don't have any presence?"

"You look alright," Kageyama offered after finishing his milk, crumpling the box in his hand and aiming for the bin a few metres away. It sailed the air and landed with a neat, satisfying thunk.

"That's because everyone who doesn't play volleyball probably looks like a potato to you, isn't it?"

Hmm?

"Like, do you even know who Kenichi Aiko is?" Kageyama wisely stayed silent. "The prettiest girl in the grade?" Yamaguchi pushed, and Kageyama tried his best to remember who this mysterious girl was.

"She has a good vault jump, doesn't she?" Kageyama finally recalled something, and Yamaguchi rolled his eyes.

"Of course that's what you remember. That's why your opinion on my appearance is invalid!"

Well, Suga always said that… Yeah, that was it.

"Girls like to go for nice guys, don't they?"

"Nice," Yamaguchi repeated, all dry. " _Nice_. Oh my, I'm quite overcome. Find another compliment, Kageyama."

"Hardworking?" Kageyama tried.

And Yamaguchi gave a shrug. "That's it though. I've always had to be hardworking to catch up to anyone. I study a lot more than Tsukki to maintain the same marks, and as much as I'm a lot more confident now, sometimes I see Hinata do these amazing rolls and receives, and Tsukki thinking up all the ways to use the strategies I only just finished memorising and I—"

"Why does that matter?" Kageyama cut in. "Spending more time on something doesn't make your results any less valuable." Kageyama tilted his head back to think a little, and nodded to himself. "You ranked better than Tsukishima in that last exam, I remember Yachi telling me."

"Tsukki was sick the week before," Yamaguchi defended. "His rank would never drop otherwise!"

"Okay." That blank reply made Yamaguchi pause and Kageyama took the chance to shrug and say, "Point still stands though."

Yamaguchi looked a little thoughtful then, wiping some humidity from his brow. "I guess, what I mean is… When you see Oikawa-san's serves, what do you think?" Yamaguchi tried, and Kageyama's gaze sharpened as he recalled Oikawa's form in photorealistic accuracy, replaying every movement and the whiplash of strength that sent the ball careening into the weakest area of the court. Kageyama had been practicing for the past few years, and he still hadn't gotten to that level of accuracy yet, even though he was getting close, near equal, in power. Kageyama clenched his fist.

"I'll surpass him soon," he said with determination, and Yamaguchi immediately coughed to smother a snicker.

"Oh my gosh, of course you'll say that. Wrong question. Umm, what about whenever Tsukki, or Yachi, or me beat you in math?"

"Can't fail, or Coach Ukai will ban me," Kageyama replied promptly.

Yamaguchi couldn't suppress his smile this time.

"Okay, okay. What do you think about me, Kageyama?"

"You're nice," Kageyama said, before pausing. Whoops. "And your serves are strong." _Because you worked hard,_ Kageyama didn't really get to say, _and who cares about working hard as long as you get there?_

Day after day, he'd stay late at Kitagawa Daiichi, only to get shooed away because his sempai were still staying late. Oikawa, the school, no, the _prefecture's_ genius hitting serve after serve after serve, before arriving nearly late the next day with five girls on one hand, a grumpy Iwaizumi on the other, a small limp and a smirk full of bravado.

Kageyama himself. Year after year after year practicing toss after toss after toss.

But before he could somehow wrangle all that into workable speech, Yamaguchi had started laughing and couldn't stop, which made Kageyama swallow the rest of his words a little petulantly.

"Kageyama, you should be glad you're such a genius at volleyball," he was able to say through his snickers after Kageyama punched him on the shoulder. "Alright, sorry. Heh. You're basically a shoo-in for the national team at this point, just need one or two years to build up your rep and you're done, right? How nice," Yamaguchi said, staring up at the night sky. It was only partly cloudy, so they could still see the bright sliver of a moon cresting the heavens. "I'm still wondering what I'd like to do."

As Kageyama could hardly help with that, after a moment of staring at the dust motes floating under the bright glare of the gym lights he picked himself up and started to roll the basket of volleyballs back into storage.

"Oh, let me help with that!" Yamaguchi called, and they both closed the gym together. At the end, they locked the clubroom too, before parting at the school gates. "See you tomorrow, Kageyama!" Yamaguchi called. His teeth shone white in the darkness, a broad grin bright and unexpected in such overbearing heat. Kageyama responded with a wave of his own before walking down the dark streets back to his house.

Early next day, next to Tsukishima wearing his headphones, was Yamaguchi as usual, fiddling with his phone as they waited for the keys he held to the gym.

"Good morning, Kageyama!" Yamaguchi called, smile wide, nudging a sleepy looking Tsukishima wearing a bleary morning scowl, and Kageyama had a brief thought wondering how people could say Tsukishima was better than Yamaguchi before he got distracted by Hinata careening around the corner screeching how Kageyama was here, _finally_ , he'd been _dying_ out here waiting to go in, come on, unlock the gym already!

He chopped at Hinata's head, threw the keys at him as a parting shot before rushing to the clubroom to unload his extra bags to join them.  


* * *

  
After they met up with Yamaguchi, they had a brief stop at a few food stalls to get breakfast, before joining Yamaguchi's tip to follow a tall, black-hooded man with a religious looking emblem of a sun on his shoulder.

Kageyama looked over Hisho's sun-drenched décor again, the sun soaking into the dark of his cloak, but also into the white and yellow blocks of sandstone that made so many of the houses, making the city look powdery and oversaturated. The smell of food stalls made him feel satisfied as he breathed it in. He shuffled over the edge of the roof that Sugawara had picked as a good vantage point (in the few weeks Kageyama had been with this Sugawara, he'd noticed an odd preference for windows and roofs, and not you know, _doors_ and actual seats) and turned to watch over the other three.

Sugawara's grey head of hair sat at the side, finishing off some fried bread as he kept an eye on Yamaguchi's mark and nodded along to Tsukishima, who was sitting under the meagre shade of the chimney explaining everything that had happened as quickly and concisely as he could. Although he sounded business-clipped and vaguely annoyed, Yamaguchi sat and listened carefully with a concentrated frown.

Kageyama rested his head on his knees and watched them.

"It's been two months?!" Yamaguchi's eyes widened. "I've, I only remember being here for a week and a half!" Yamaguchi glanced at a silent Tsukishima before looking down at his hands. "No wonder you guys are here. Is Akiteru's trial soon?"

"It's in four… no, three days," Sugawara replied. "The time magic seems to only loop within the city," Sugawara explained, and Yamaguchi gulped.

"Oh," he replied weakly. "Okay. That's… that's quick. Well, let me share what I know."

Yamaguchi quickly went through what he found in the city – mainly, a whole bunch of nothing. None of the residents had even known it was _Akiteru Tsukishima_ (a renowned duke's son) had been investigating anything in the city, only that _'someone from the Capital is here to take care of the missing people case, right?'_

"Akiteru was sent to Hisho on the pretence on investigating the missing people cases, so I sneaked a peek into those case files. It seems like Akiteru did try to find a little about the missing people but he didn't really get far into it because he was trying to track down, you know, whether there was a demonic stuff going on, haha…" Yamaguchi trailed off uncertainly, and Tsukishima took the opportunity to cut in brusquely.

"Akiteru's real case with the demons. The bakery and the insane girl. What did you find?"

"Yeah, that bakery!" Yamaguchi answered. "That's actually why I contacted my ma. Apparently the girl had a fiancé but he wasn't part of Akiteru's quarantine when I checked the list of names… When I asked around no-one knows where's he's from, and no-one has seen him since she and her family went insane."

Tsukishima frowned in thought. "How's the guy we're following related?"

"He moved into the city the same day as the fiancé, bought their houses close together, were seen eating lunch together a few times, has a suspiciously absent and erratic schedule and apparently the boyfriend had this necklace with a sun motif that's kinda similar to what the man has on his cloak." Yamaguchi half-shrugged. "It's the only lead I've found the time I've been here."

"Have you contacted Akiteru's team?"

"Yeah, haha, about that," Yamaguchi scratched his head sheepishly, eyes wandering to Tsukishima's serious face and quickly darting to the side. "They slammed their door on my face, basically. Turns out the ones that stayed in Hisho aren't as much as _Akiteru's_ team as much as they're the Crown's unit given to serve _under_ Akiteru. They didn't give me anything even with your crest, Tsukki."

"Tch."

It seemed like it had been a good idea of Tsukishima's to find Yamaguchi first. Unlike his appearance, Sugawara reflected, he'd done a very thorough job. He'd interviewed near half the city, it seemed, became friends with a few key locals. Used his connections to see where things connected, and he'd found a lead even when most sources of information weren't available. 

How coincidental that the first day Yamaguchi found a lead was the one day he would be trapped in a time loop.

His eyes tracked the cloaked man pensively.

Sugawara was a person who liked to believe coincidences didn't exist.

"Do you want to just pull the guy over so we can interrogate him for anything he knows?" Sugawara said through the chews of the last few bites of his breakfast, patting the crumbs off before sweeping back his hair to tie it into a tiny ponytail in the back.

"He hasn't done anything yet though," Yamaguchi replied, turning to hold up a pair of small, bronze binoculars to his eyes and following the cloaked man rummaging through a cartful of carrots. "I don't want to pull over an innocent man for one, and two it's always better to catch them in the act, sir." Yamaguchi replied respectfully.

Sugawara had a wry twist to his mouth at that. "I told you, I don't care much for honorifics or politeness, so just call me by my name if you want."

"Oh no," Yamaguchi shook his head quickly, his hair quickly fluffing up around him. "I'm just a servant! As much as you want to be kind, sir, someone like me can't just talk to the Sage's apprentice like that!"

Sugawara raised an eyebrow at an indifferent Tsukishima who was sitting in the shadow of the chimney, reading some papers, and Yamaguchi flushed.

"Tsukki is different!" Yamaguchi exclaims, before adding sheepishly, "Not that you're any less important, Tsukki."

Sugawara sighed and gave up as he nostalgically thought of Chou, and its nature as a rather informal, liberal country. No-one gave this much of a crap about him being the Sage's apprentice _there_.

Tsukishima had introduced Kageyama as a less overwhelming 'Sage-approved genius mage but an idiot at everything else', but directly stated Sugawara as 'the Sage's apprentice from Chou' and Yamaguchi had swiftly descended into giving Sugawara looks of wide-eyed awe.

Oh, whatever. "I'll keep an eye out on the target, and tell you if he does anything suspicious. You three can do whatever, but stay close just in case," Sugawara said through a yawn, before turning to keep watch again, low-key hating stalking missions since they were brain-numbingly boring. That guy had been milling around the fruit section for the past half an hour. If _that_ wasn't suspicious, nothing was, Sugawara's mind complained as he tried to find a comfortable spot.  


* * *

  
It was an hour later, when Tsukishima had all but finished interrogating Yamaguchi about everything that he knew, postulated all he could about what exactly the time-travelling had been about, and what forces Akiteru had gotten himself into that he couldn't stand it anymore.

"I understand we need to stick together because most of us don't have the ability to resist _time travel_ but I can't sit around wasting time like this. I'll come back in five minutes, but there's some documents I want to collect from Yamaguchi's room."

Tsukishima didn't wait for a reply before he prepared to jump off the roof.

Yamaguchi immediately dropped the binoculars. "I'll come with you, Tsukki!"

With a short, "No need," Tsukishima streaked away to the mansion in a soft clink of his shoe buckles. At that rebuff, Yamaguchi flopped to the ground in slight disappointment, conveniently next to where Kageyama was sitting down. The other boy had been a silent presence perching on the corner of the roof facing all of them, eyes a little dazed, sometimes nodding to himself. Yamaguchi had genuinely wondered if he was like _that_ , you know, those kids that parents carefully hid or chucked in alleyways because they'd be a burden since they couldn't think properly, but when Sugawara had asked Kageyama a question on cloud-watching and Kageyama had… shook off the weirdness and answered like a normal person.

It was like he was possessed or something. Was he also a shaman or something? Was he talking to… _ghosts_?

Yamaguchi gulped. Nah, probably not. Shamanism was a dying art.

And anyway, Kageyama Tobio's dark blue eyes had gained clarity since he'd flopped down, and was looking straight at him. Observing him?

Didn't Tsukki call him a genius?

"Hey," Yamaguchi offered Kageyama tentatively. "Your name is Kageyama Tobio, right? Mind if I call you by your name?"

"…You can call me Tobio if you want," Kageyama offered. It's what Yamaguchi had called Kageyama in their later years, even if Kageyama had just kept to Yamaguchi and got rid of the suffix. "I'm a commoner too."

Yamaguchi laughed a little nervously, leaning backwards to lie down on the sun-warmed tiles of the roof. "That's moving a bit fast! I'll just call you Kageyama. You're an amazing magician right? What do you do?"

Kageyama manoeuvred himself to lie down next to him, squinting as he adjusted himself under the cloudless blue sky. According to Suga, Benzaiten was a water goddess so…

"I specialise in water magic," he replied shortly.

"Oh, that's so cool!" Yamaguchi gushed. Water magic, not shamanism, and water magic was very useful too. Good, good, no ghosts around, no sir. Maybe he was just a deep thinker? "That's awesome! Water magic, huh? I was tested by my family when I was younger, and I didn't have an aptitude for anything even though I really wanted to be a magician, haha." Yamaguchi flushed a little at that declaration.

"I'm very new though," Kageyama said when Yamaguchi trailed off.

A memory just from a few hours ago flashed in his mind, and Kageyama gave a complicated glance at his own hands. He hadn't even known he could melt like that. If Tsukishima hadn't been there…

Yamaguchi chuckled, disrupting his chain of thought.

"Oh, that's okay! Everyone is a beginner at some point," Yamaguchi replied quickly. "I'm, well, I'm not that talented at anything in particular you know? So to motivate myself I realised since I'm not talented at anything, it just means I have an equal starting point in everything! Guess what I decided to do with my meagre magic power?"

Without waiting for a reply, Yamaguchi squared his shoulders in pride. "I asked my grandparents to teach me enchantment!"

At Kageyama's bewildered face, Yamaguchi sat up quickly and rifled around his bag. "It's really cool, I'll show you! So all I have to do is draw some patterns onto paper, and use a little bit of magic power, and bam! It does stuff! Look at this one! I drew it so it can make you invisible for ten minutes or so!"

"Really?" Kageyama said in surprise, hauling himself up and staring at one of the papers that Yamaguchi had offered him. It was light in his fingers – much less textured than the heavy parchment that he'd seen Tsukishima handling – and had patterns of concentric circles, angles and text drawn on it that he honestly couldn't make out.

"This is really good. Invisibility is amazing," he said sincerely.

Yamaguchi's face exploded into red. A Tsukki approved genius had praised him!

"Uh, oh no, you—you wouldn't say that if you saw my grandpa's charms, haha, these are actually not that great, I mean," Yamaguchi blurted out, although he was obviously happy. "I mean, thank you, no-one has um, praised them before."

( _"Daaaaw, look at you, you're so cute as a kid, Yamaguchi,"_ Yachi cooed.)

Really? Kageyama tilted his head, examining the other boy.

Yamaguchi did have a soft baby face going on, plump-cheeked with a whole dash of freckles high across his cheeks. His hair was a bit spikier than usual, fluffing out on the sides in a slightly oily sheen and tinted green underneath the strong sunlight.

But just like any other version of the friends he'd successfully bumped into so far, Yamaguchi also seemed very fit. The way Yamaguchi had easily scrambled up the roof like a lizard, in comparison to Sugawara's easy toe-jumps with Kageyama on his back, or Tsukishima's efficient climbing skills made Kageyama just appreciate how Yamaguchi also probably knew how to stab him seven ways to death.

"Since we don't have anything to do… Do, do you want to see more of my charms?" Yamaguchi asked a little shyly, ears red. "I've made more than a few to prepare for, you know, just in case something dangerous comes… Though Tsukki does call me a worrywart sometimes um."

"Sure," Kageyama replied, shuffling a few inches closer to Yamaguchi. "What does this one do?" Kageyama asked, pointing at one of the charms that Yamaguchi had spilled onto the floor, and Yamaguchi lit up.

"Oh, this one? It's really cool! So, so like if I spit on it, and then slap it somewhere, it'll blow up after a few seconds! I can't really control the timing yet though, and the explosion is actually really small, but I keep it just in case… And oh, this one! If I slap it on, I become really tanned. See?"

Yamaguchi turned a deep brown before his eyes, before going back to his original colour when he took the tag off.

More than a little intrigued now, Kageyama pointed to one that seemed like it was painted with some sort of bronze paint. "What about this one?"

Yamaguchi's grin grew so wide it started to show teeth. "Oh man, I designed this one myself! So you put this paper charm on your forehead," and with a quick lick on some dried paste at the back Yamaguchi stuck it like so, and behind the paper talisman Yamaguchi's face visibly started aging. "So this is what I would look like when I'm forty! Amazing, isn't it? The major problem of this charm, of course, is that I don't know how to create this effect without having a paper talisman blocking your face, so it's not really that useful for any effective disguises haha…"

Kageyama's heart stopped. Then he slowly reached out, pulling the paper talisman lightly upwards.

There he was. Cheeks well-rounded, nearly a little chubby from excess eating and too little effective exercise, wrinkles all around the eyes and the forehead from too much strain while working. Eyes the kind sort, still slanted and small. Baby fat all gone, instead wearing the working stressed weight of an adult. Looking back at him.

_"Hey, Tobio!" Yamaguchi waved, failing to work out that little slouch he'd gained after years behind the desk as he straightened out, nearly knocking over one of the hanging trellises of the café. "Over here!"_

A face that looked increasingly nervous and discomfited the more Kageyama stared.

_"Rina left me for another man," Yamaguchi mourned, squishing his face to the table and slamming his sake cup on the table. "Why do all my girlfriends leave me, Kageyama? It's not like I'm that married to my work!"_

"Uh…" Yamaguchi trailed off, clearly awkward.

Kageyama's felt like he couldn't breathe from a huge gaping hole that seemed to be ripped open again. It was just like the first time he saw Suga, that huge, crushing realisation that he didn't remember him. Only this time, it was from a familiar face, where they had once shared decades, and decades of conversation and laughter.

It hurt.

_It hurt._

Slowly, Kageyama dropped his hand, letting the paper flop back onto his nose as he sat backwards on his heels. "Sorry," Kageyama said. "You looked… like someone I knew."

Yamaguchi's painfully familiar face, aged and worn still, immediately dropped into sympathy. "It's alright, Kageyama," he said kindly, prepubescent voice sounding oddly young in comparison to his face.

_"Haha, did you hear, Kageyama? Tsukki got another promotion! He says that won't stop him from heckling you at your next game though. Your relationship is so weird, I don't get it."_

A flesh mask.

Kageyama suddenly had a flash of _something_ , anger, annoyance maybe, something that burnt through him with a startling intensity as he suddenly wanted that face _off_. This Yamaguchi had no business wearing this face, from a time long gone and reminiscent of warmed _sake_ , night-time stars and death, of his dear friend when they had met for only a few mere hours. That face would never misunderstand, would never have said _'it's alright'_ in _that way_ and the material between his fingers grew wet as that bright flash of anger bloomed, bloomed and twisted—

An airy laugh like water bubbles rising towards a distant surface.

_Do you want this boy gone?_

A hand suddenly covered Kageyama's eyes.

"What is it, Kageyama?" Sugawara asked through the dark slivers of light between his fingers. "Calm down. Breathe."

Kageyama tried to shrug off the hand, a little irritated, but Sugawara's hand stayed still, hand clamping in warning to _be still._

"Kageyama. _Listen to me._ Let me tell you a story. Nekomata once did this funny thing when he was angry," Sugawara said conversationally, like he didn't have a hand plastered to Kageyama's face. "You see, there was this funny guardsman named Makoto. So Makoto, see, he was a nice guy with a head full of red curls and a nice smile. He made some cracking cookies too. However, he was also pretty forgetful, and once he accidentally left Nekomata's order of some extremely poisonous plants lying near a park where a lot of kids liked to play."

Kageyama stopped trying to tug the hand off his face, a little curious as to where this was going.

"When Nekomata found out, he was _furious_ ," Sugawara said with a gentle laugh, lowering his hand out of his own volition now, and Kageyama's eyes immediately blinked past the brightness to Sugawara, who stood right in front of him. "In the next second, even though Makoto was half a city away and buying some snacks in the marketplace he was suddenly buried neck deep in this mound of solid rock. Nekomata left him there for a few hours as punishment with the snacks he bought dangling a few inches from his face."

"Oh, that's _evil_ ," Yamaguchi snickered.

"I know," Sugawara agreed with a soft chuff of a breath, eyes never leaving Kageyama's. "The thing is, guess what Nekomata said to him as a parting shot?"

"…What?" Kageyama asked, quiet.

_"You should be glad I'm not young anymore, boy,"_ Sugawara mimicked a grumpy old man, complete with expression and all. "Apparently, when he was young and much more short-tempered, Nekomata accidentally buried a lot of people. Sometimes… with irrevocable consequences."

Sugawara finally looked away to pat Yamaguchi's oddly aged head. "And you said so yourself, right? You want to be friends with this boy."

The implications were not lost on Kageyama.

"It's okay to be a little angry sometimes," Sugawara continued. "You've been very mature so far, so I didn't think this would be an issue. But be careful to not direct anger at any particular person, okay?"

Kageyama nodded mutely before pausing as Tsukishima came back, scaling up the side of the building complaining (something about 'always being on rooftops' like 'uncivilised barbarians'), but at the utter silence that greeted him—a quick scan showed Sugawara standing in front of Kageyama defensively for Yamaguchi (who was standing to the side confused) and Kageyama's own pensive face—Tsukishima's face immediately deadpanned.

"What did I miss?"

"Nothing," Sugawara replied airily, already heading back to his original spot. When Tsukishima glanced at Yamaguchi, he shrugged.

"I… I honestly don't know?" Yamaguchi replied with an awkward smile.

Tsukishima gave them all a suspicious glance. "Oh, whatever. Pull that tag off your face and help me with these papers."

"Ah! Okay, Tsukki!"

Yamaguchi's face shimmered back to normal as he pulled the tag off and crumpled it into a ball in his hand, settling down and patting the spot next to him invitingly for Kageyama.

Kageyama slowly sat down, and despite everything that happened, Yamaguchi still found a moment to give him a small, nervous smile and a small mumbled apology _'for anything that offended you just then!'_

Kageyama mumbled a reply before watching Sugawara calmly watch the horizon, and Yamaguchi and Tsukishima brainstorm their way through the issues in the city ("The missing people cases started way earlier, Tsukki." "Doesn't mean they can't be related." "True! You're right as always, Tsukki! But I've looked into it already. No-one's found any real link between the missing people, let alone with Akiteru's _actual_ case…"). And Kageyama…

For the first time, something stirred in Kageyama's heart more than 'I want to know more about my friends' and 'finding them'.

He…

He had to be better than this.

Kageyama looked around. Sugawara, keeping watch from three streets away. Tsukishima arguing with a nodding Yamaguchi over a scatter of papers and small maps.

Kageyama was useless here, wasn't he?

He couldn't read, couldn't do martial arts. His magic was powerful but self-harming and untrained, and all he knew about this world were Sugawara's basic general knowledge lessons. Furthermore he'd relied on Sugawara to do everything. Money, travelling, supplies...

His inner Hinata scolded him for being so complacent, _so lacking of drive_ , and for the first time in years Kageyama turned and listened. That nagging voice at the end of his mind that whispered in Hinata's voice that _wasn't he better than this?_

Maybe. Hinata had always tended to put him on a pedestal, making him his goal, and maybe Kageyama had sometimes tried to make Hinata's rose-tinted vision of himself come true. 

Kageyama stared down at his hands.

But he'd nearly hurt Yamaguchi.

That.

That in itself was already unforgiveable.  


* * *

  
On a particular weekend reunion, Yamaguchi scrubbed the dishes with him, quiet clinks that seemed loud in comparison to the raucous cheers of the living room behind them where Hinata and Noya cheered a flagging Asahi as he got pummelled by Tsukishima in Super Smash. They'd drawn the short straws this time, and Hinata's face was gloating when Kageyama picked up his plates (Kageyama karate-chopped his head when he came back for a second load), while their sempai cackled and mixed some after dinner drinks that looked dubiously rainbow. However, now that he was in the relative quiet in the kitchen, something eased up on Kageyama's chest that he hadn't been aware off and Kageyama breathed out that built out tension to Yamaguchi's small sympathetic chuckle.

As Yamaguchi was prone to do, he was giving a small ramble over some of the things in his life, this time about a pair of frustrating co-workers, and Kageyama had his head tilted slightly to indicate he was listening as he rinsed and placed the dishes on the drying rack.

"They both think they're the team leaders, but they're both stupid and make us nearly fail deadlines," Yamaguchi sighed. "Why do they have so many opinions anyway? They should just do their job and not question our _actual_ leader who knows what he's doing and has done proposals and supervised a tonne of noobs for like, fifty years more than us."

Kageyama hummed in response, frowning at a particularly stubborn stain.

"Oh whoops," Yamaguchi peered past his shoulder and plucked it out of his hands back into the suds. "Must have missed that spot."

Rinsing a stack of chopsticks instead, Kageyama carefully placed them in the overfull dish rack, as Yamaguchi slid the clean dish back onto his side.

"Ugh, I should stop whining right? What's up on your side, Kageyama? Any news?" Yamaguchi shook himself, determinedly cheerful.

"Uh," Kageyama blinked, hands stilling as his mind started filtering through what had happened during his week. Waking up early, warm ups, basic strengthening, practice, team practice, lunch break and analysing videos, practice, going home and eating, sometimes with Hinata sometimes alone… Their regional team recently had shifted their members, and Kageyama had to pick up the slack while preparing for the scout his manager had excitedly marked the date down for the national team. Some days when he was out of the court, when Hinata wasn't talking his ear off at dinner, when he was alone in the kitchen washing dishes in the dark because he couldn't be bothered to switch on the lights… Sometimes Kageyama stopped to stare over the counter, the table, out the balcony window and felt like he was drowning.

Kageyama stopped himself there.

"Volleyball," he supplied Yamaguchi.

"Like team practice?" Yamaguchi asked, picking at the dirty edge of a fork.

"Sometimes," Kageyama nodded, hands starting to move again. "Sometimes it's just strengthening or skills practice. I've been thinking of a new set up, but I'm waiting until I can do my part before asking Amanuma to practice with me."

"Amanuma?" Yamaguchi wrinkled his nose. "Eew."

"He's got the best jump in the team," Kageyama said.

Yamaguchi sniffed. "Doesn't stop him from being a douche. Do you even remember what he said to Yachi when she visited you last time?"

"Yeah," Kageyama replied quietly. "But after Sakae left, he's the only one who can jump high enough."

Having sensed something between Kageyama's words, Yamaguchi fell silent. Then with determination, Yamaguchi suddenly squared his shoulders and plunged both hands into the water, making detergent fly everywhere. Kageyama gave him an unimpressed stare, and Yamaguchi laughed.

"Screw bad teammates, right?"

Yamaguchi nudged him with a soapy elbow for a reply, and Kageyama huffed out a short laugh.

"Yeah."

The silence suddenly broke with Noya screamed in the living room. "BASH HIM, ASAHI! WHERE ARE YOUR COMBOS?! KICK HIM, COME ON!" And Asahi's flustered reply. Yamaguchi jumped in shock, glancing behind him through the glass of the door and squinted, murmuring a "Good, Tsukki's still winning."

And Kageyama carefully placed the pan on the dish rack with a delicate clink, hoping that the next match would be Noya stepping up into a revenge match and thrashing Tsukishima to stop the smirk that Kageyama could just see was on Tsukishima's face right now.

There was silence as they both tried to rush through the last of the dishes as quickly as possible. Then, when Kageyama wasn't expecting anything, a small, almost too casual voice came.

"I know I'm no Suga-sempai, but you know I'll always be here to listen, okay?"

_Of course._

"Hehe," Yamaguchi laughed in that silence. It was a tiny snicker, nearly private to himself but shared between the two only from circumstance, and although Yamaguchi never volunteered what had made him laugh, that time, Kageyama thought he understood as he flicked a bit of soap on Yamaguchi's arm in retribution, and Yamaguchi splashed a large plate onto his side a little too violently for it to be accidental.  


* * *

  
"Be quieter," Sugawara hissed backwards, carefully stepping through the pools of muck and ducking the low ceiling of the maintenance sewer tunnels.

"Urp," was Tsukishima's feeble response.

"You okay, Tsukki?"

"This is disgusting." A small pause later, Tsukishima froze, forcing Kageyama to stop behind him.

"What?" Kageyama replied a little shortly, because the smell was getting to him too, thank you very much, and Tsukishima shuddered to life.

"Something dripped on my hair," Tsukishima replied soullessly, before staggering forwards in the shuffle of those defeated, and Kageyama thanked his lucky stars that his cloak had a hood on it.

Uncaring of their shenanigans, Sugawara merely went ahead. "He went through this crack in the wall," Sugawara said, going into a badly maintained room and peering around a few leaning lockers into a narrow gash in the brick, opening up into a natural fissure. There was a slight wind whistling through the fissure, a cold, remarkably fresh breeze. Tsukishima made an impatient noise.

"Oh gods, just go," he said, hunching over in his cloak and grabbing a handful to carefully pluck at the muck on his blonde hair. "I think I'll just shave it all off when I get back home."

"I think its brown, Tsukki," Yamaguchi piped up helpfully. "And shiny."

Tsukishima shuddered.

"Follow me, but quietly," Sugawara snapped his fingers at them impatiently, having finished checking for traps. "There's no-one behind us, so same line-up as before."

They dutifully filed into order, Sugawara first, with Tsukishima, Kageyama and then Yamaguchi behind, and they all trudged as quietly as they could into the stony crag. It soon opened up into a huge rock cavern, and Tsukishima narrowed his eyes at the black wisps of energy floating above their heads.

"Chaotic energy," Tsukishima muttered. "This must be the tunnel Akiteru found."

Past the streams of darkness that flew over their heads, and Sugawara caught sight of the dull slickness of the floor, as well as a second, wider cavern far within. On the edges of that far corridor was a hint of movement, a dim gleam and a vague shadow. A heartbeat, lying in wait.

Farther away, he smelt blood.

"You guys," Sugawara sighed, pulling his qi up and circulating it as stealthily as possible. In a second, the qi had circulated two rounds around his body, as Sugawara settled into a crouch, stretching a little before getting into a sprinter's starting position. "Were too _LOUD_!"

With a huge stomp, the stone underneath Sugawara's foot cracked as he rocketed forward, his next step ten metres away from where he started, halfway across the cavern already. Not even a split second had passed when he stomped down his other foot and increased his momentum, accelerating so close to the entrance of the second cavern the stone was mere centimetres next to his face as he brushed past. His eyes met another set, in a face that had only started to slacken in surprise even as Sugawara whipped his arms forward, bending himself against his propellant force to grab large handfuls of the man's black cloak and directing all his forward momentum into a pivot, using the man's body as enough of an anchor to wind himself 180 degrees around him and slam his feet into the wall. Then with all the force left of his rush, he grabbed the cloak more tightly and continued to swing him around until the man smashed into the wall in front of him, staying there for a few seconds before sliding down the wall weakly as he let go.

Sugawara let out a breath of exertion as he hopped off the wall himself, giving his back a stretch as the others hurried to catch up.

"Anyone have rope?" Sugawara asked when they arrived a few seconds later. Yamaguchi quickly dug around in his bag for some, as Tsukishima proceeded to walk further in on his own. "Be careful of traps!" Sugawara called as he received some rope from Yamaguchi with a small thanks, but Tsukishima just waved him off as he continued forward, holding a small recording device he'd recovered from Yamaguchi before.

"A cavern, half natural, half man-made," Tsukishima noted as he walked down, one hand carefully cradling his recording, the other at the ready on his sword. Kageyama quickly trotted behind him, unnerved that he was disappearing into the darkness by himself. From what Noya had always crowed from the couch whenever they watched movies, separating had always been the worst idea possible.

Tsukishima gave him a glance. "Make yourself useful if you're going to follow."

Kageyama paused. Pointing his staff upwards, a bubble of dark blue energy quickly filled out on top.

" _Fos_ ," Kageyama muttered.

Tsukishima gave him a mildly incredulous look before the magic bubble on top of his staff burst into bright yellow flame, crackling merrily in a wave of heat and light. Tsukishima wisely closed his mouth after that, and transformed it into an unimpressed 'hn' as he turned around and kept walking.

"Can you make one over here as well, Kageyama?" Sugawara called over, and with a small frown of concentration, a smaller ball of magic power floated off the top of his staff and burst into flame, floating towards Sugawara and settling somewhere vaguely above Yamaguchi's head.

"I thought his specialty was water magic?" Kageyama heard Yamaguchi ask Sugawara as he stepped behind Tsukishima.

"He's a genius, remember?" Sugawara replied with a laugh, measuring the length of rope before bending down to hogtie the man.

Yamaguchi's 'aaah' of understanding echoed behind Tsukishima and Kageyama as they ventured deeper into the cavern and Tsukishima scoffed. "Don't let your head get too big," Tsukishima snarked as he examined the stalagmites they passed, looking for anything interesting. The rock formations seemed to grow randomly, but seemed to clear off in the middle… Tsukishima changed direction. "Yamaguchi is like that with everyone."

Honestly speaking, Tsukishima was expecting some sort of reaction at least, more than the bland "Yeah," that he got as a response.

Distracted again, Tsukishima noted with annoyance.

"What's wrong with you?" Tsukishima mumbled as they drew nearer to the centre. The light bobbed in front of them, starting to light up rusty stains on the stone floor, and black streaks plastering the bottom of a few stalagmites that seemed like desperate handprints trying to gain purchase, to get away from something, and Tsukishima bent down to carefully record it.

"Hm?" Kageyama tilted his head in confusion.

"You're always so distracted," Tsukishima replied, "and sure, your travel companion seems to just see that as a quirk and move on," he jerked his head back at the small glowing light behind them, Sugawara and Yamaguchi mere blurs now, "but really, it's just annoying."

"I was thinking," Kageyama replied. And before Tsukishima could reply to the other boy that no, thinking was not a great excuse at all, he continued, "Hey. Will you teach me how to read?"

"No." Tsukishima replied simply, sniffing the air. The smell of dank cave, cold stone and burnt herbs… Nothing distinctive easily recognised, but this mixture of scents tickled his mind, reminded him of something. Tsukishima took a moment to catalogue that, before continuing, "You're the future sage, and you'll be filthy rich the moment you mention it. Hire a tutor."

By the time Kageyama was recognised as a true sage, he'd be whisked away by people many times more important than Tsukishima and forget about him, really. _Friends._ Pfft. That notion only showed what a naïve idiot the other boy was.

Tsukishima moved onwards on that thought, hands tightening a little nervously around his sword as the darkness surrounded their bubble of light. The blood stains covered the floor the closer they came to the centre of the cavern, dry, flaking but thick. The harsh light of the fireball made the darkness delve into depths near impossible to see through. Every drip of water made his hair rise, every hushed murmur made his heart rabbit fast.

Hmm.

Kageyama took a few seconds to consider his friend, before flexing his hand around the staff in consideration. The next second, a transparent blue bubble wrapped around them both, and Tsukishima blinked.

"It'll hold against an attack or two," Kageyama gestured, poking at the bubble to demonstrate himself.

…As hard as it was to admit it, Tsukishima relaxed.

He coughed, turning. "You didn't have to do that. Sugawara would have heard if there were any other people in this cavern," Tsukishima said, walking a little faster. Kageyama made a face behind his back and followed, glancing around curiously and feeling more and more on edge as the smell of blood grew thick and heavy in the air, cold and damp as it pressed into their lungs.

As they drew nearer to the centre, the large ball of flame threw into sharp relief a large stone obelisk, tapered and looming. In front of it were the two agents that had been brainwashed and lead here. The man had obviously been busy – the two lay as corpses decapitated and lain straight on a slight decline, letting the blood run down the floor into a small natural basin surrounded by spiralling glyphs that started from the basin and curled its way up into straight script up the length of the stone obelisk. Their heads were no-where to be seen.

Tsukishima wordlessly recorded the whole thing, panning it around as he carefully recorded the scene, bending carefully to examine the runes on the floor.

"I don't recognise these characters," Tsukishima squinted, the strange rounded edges of the characters in a mixture of short strokes and weird curves making lines and lines of pictograms. Behind him, Kageyama stopped short.

"It's _hiragana_ ," Kageyama breathed out in confusion.

Tsukishima turned back sharply.

"You can read this?"

Kageyama nodded absently, eyes raking over the lines and lines of swirling characters. This atmosphere, this setting…

The urge to vomit was suddenly gone when something clicked in Kageyama's mind, because didn't this look exactly like one of Noya's favourite horror films?

And with that, Noya's laugh grew louder and louder in his head. _"Ahahahahahahahahahaha,"_ Noya now laughed manically in his mind while Asahi made a vague strangled sound. _"All this is missing is some really good fog!"_ Noya yelled excitedly. _"Maybe some blood mist to go with it all! Ooh, maybe if you read this stone thing you'll find out about a curse that'll haunt you unless you bring someone here and kill them!"_

_"Stop, Noya!"_ Asahi exclaimed, _"Don't jinx it!"_

_"I'm not!"_ Noya defended. _"I'm just sayinnnggggg—"_

Kageyama tried his best to quell a tiny quirk of a smile as he stepped up and read the obelisk.

"What does it say?" Tsukishima asked, beside him.

"Their handwriting is really bad," Kageyama squinted, raising his staff to direct the fireball a little closer to the stone. "And it's a little smudged. But… It says something like," Kageyama said, finangling the translation in his head and inwardly cringing at the quality. "Our deceiver sleeps, unwillingly separated from, uh the smudged character looks kind of like rock? Or a fountain?"

"Go on," Tsukishima said, having found a notepad and pen somewhere, jotting it down.

"Unwillingly separated from the fountain, unwillingly bound to the shadows! However, dauntless he waits to rise as our Lord, our Master to free the world from its stagnation! We offer our sacrifices and pleas now, to our King and…" Kageyama quickly skimmed the rest. "After that's it's just a long line of praises until the end."

Kageyama crouched down, read the trail end of the text near the pool of blood. "I think they're saying that they're storing the bodies of whatever they've sacrificed somewhere so whatever they're worshipping can have a place to rest his spirit or something."

When Kageyama saw a few characters relating to hair and scalps along the much smudgier characters on the floor, he added, "I think they're saving the heads."

They both gave a significant look towards the decapitated bodies with their missing heads lying in front of them, and Kageyama looked away. However, Tsukishima stared at the scene unflinchingly, carefully stepping around the pool of blood to record the obelisk in detail. Under the sole light of the ball of flame, Tsukishima's face was a picture of stark contrasts, cheekbones shadowed, eyes deep. His gold eyes soon found Kageyama's own blue ones.

"Can you find the heads?" Tsukishima asked. Kageyama shook his head in negative. "Alright, let's call the Sage's apprentice over."

Kageyama faced back the way they came and called out. "Sugawara! We found something!"

The small spot of light in the distance was far enough that Kageyama could only see the vague hunch of two people, but then one of them stood up and waved.

"Coming!" Came Sugawara's faint call. They soon appeared on the edge of their protective bubble, and Yamaguchi's face quickly turning green and holding a hand in front of his mouth as he tried not to retch at all the blood.

"What _is_ this?" Yamaguchi cringed, quickly hurrying into Kageyama's barrier when he opened it up for him. Sugawara stayed outside, eyes critically taking in the situation. Raising his feet and examining the blood flakes on it and the recently decapitated corpses, he looked at Kageyama.

"What did you find?"

"Wonder boy wasn't as illiterate as I thought he was," Tsukishima said dryly, turning around and tucking his notepad back somewhere in his cloak. He then proceeded to catch them up on what Kageyama had translated, and Sugawara dumped their tied captive to the floor in response, nudging the man near the protective barrier.

"Alright, I'll see what I can find," Sugawara replied. "But I'll check if there are any other entrances to this place first, since I unfortunately knocked this one a little harder than he could handle." Sugawara kicked him a little, but the man stayed unresponsive. "We can't interrogate him anytime soon."

With a flicker then, he was gone.

Yamaguchi shuffled uncomfortably, edging away from all the… _blood_ and why was there an obelisk like this here anyway? Was it just him was it gleaming a little red?

Yamaguchi swallowed a little puke at the smell and shuffled closer to Tsukishima.

"I think," he coughed uncomfortably, eyes still determinedly not looking the way of the corpses slowly bleeding out over to his right, "I have a charm that might help, Tsukki. Lemme find it umm…"

After a few seconds of rummaging in his pack, he emerged with a piece of paper that vaguely smelt like roses. "I use this to determine the freshest vegetables at the market," Yamaguchi muttered, manoeuvring so that Tsukishima was always between him and the corpses and _blood_. He'd never dealt well with blood, let alone having it splashed _everywhere!_ "But the general effect is, um, it can compare freshness really, of whatever it's pasted on within ten metres, which is excessive for choosing fruit but really really helpful here so uh…"

Tsukishima plucked the charm out of Yamaguchi's fingers. "How do you use it?"

"Spit on it to activate it and then slap it on whatever you want to compare the freshness of," Yamaguchi said. "Uh, Tsukki if you don't want to spit on anything I can do it…"

Tsukishima shrugged him off and turned his back to them, and after a moment he bent down and slapped the paper onto the floor where a blood patch was particularly thick. In a few moments, something must have changed in Tsukishima's view because he raised his head towards the pool of blood, the corpses, and then somewhere to the right.

"There's a trail of fresh blood," Tsukishima said, eyes bright at a new lead. "It's already dried so it blended with all the other blood stains, but I can see it. Good job, Yamaguchi."

Even through Yamaguchi's general look of sickness he brightened up a little.

"No problem, Tsukki!"

And before they even took a step, Sugawara had flickered back to them, having obviously been listening in. "I'll take point. Tell me where to go." Tsukishima nodded and pointed in a direction.

They walked in a single file again, with Kageyama taking the back this time, following an invisible trail only Tsukishima could see. They stopped soon enough, in the middle of two particularly large stalactites. Otherwise, there wasn't much indication of anything else there.

"The trail stops here," Tsukishima said, toeing a line on the floor. Sugawara bent down and knocked on the stone.

"Trapdoor, stand back," Sugawara ordered, and when they'd moved a few paces back, Sugawara wound back his arm and punched the stone so hard his fist was imbedded in the rock. After the reverberations had died, Sugawara obviously turned his hand or something, because after a small crunching noise and the first sign of physical strain Kageyama had ever seen on his face, Sugawara heaved the large stone trapdoor open, the door sliding open to reveal its metal imbedded interior, near thirty-centimetres thick. Sugawara soon freed his fist, using both hands to finish lifting the slab and letting it fall to the floor. Tsukishima stood back and recorded the process, and was the first to draw forward to see what was inside.

Inside was the start of a shallow trail that lead in a wide pit. Or, what was once a wide pit. What Kageyama first thought were lumpy shadows soon revealed themselves once Kageyama conjured up another large fireball and drifted it over the opening.

Heads. Hundreds, and hundreds of human heads somehow preserved, carefully shaved of their hair and placed in concentric circles, with their faces all facing the entrance where they stood. Their eyes were all taped open to stare sightlessly before them. Young girls, old men, middle-aged, thousands of eyes gleaming back at them.

Kageyama's hands shook as he clutched the staff with a death grip to try not falling, while Yamaguchi finally couldn't help himself and staggered to the side and vomited. Sugawara stood tense, face a hard, unreadable mask to the side.

It was Tsukishima who continued walking in determination, lips pressed together so tightly they paled as he carefully recorded the whole scene.

"That's," Yamaguchi gasped from where he'd collapsed on his knees, wiping his mouth with something from his bag, "that man, I recognise him. He's the most recent missing person case. He used to be the market's butcher."

"It seems we found all the missing people then," Sugawara murmured solemnly, but Yamaguchi shook his head.

"There's too many people! There's barely eight people missing in Hisho. There's _hundreds_ here!"

"And there's no way Akiteru would have missed _this_ ," Tsukishima said as he looked around the inside of the pit. There were two heads that ruined the careful order, carelessly tossed to the side. Sugawara caught his eye and nodded. Those two were still bloody and fresh – probably from the bodies near the obelisk. Those heads still had their hair on their scalps, faces unnaturally still and calm.

Tsukishima side-stepped those two heads and carefully stepped inside, looking around the walls in case there were any additional clues or evidence he could record.

Just when he was satisfied that the walls were blank, and he couldn't parse any meaning of what, exactly, this hidden ritual could do, one of the heads caught his eye.

It was near the entrance, a more recent acquire. In the light of the ball of fire, Tsukishima had nearly missed it, hidden in the sheer volume of all the heads, all the glassy gazes.

But those eyes.

Kind and sharp once, always fond. Once, Tsukishima thought as his fingers numbed, those lips had sung him lullabies over and over again when he couldn't sleep when he was young, ever patient.

How could he ever miss it?

His feet somehow transported him over, the world tilting on its axis as he kneeled before it. Somehow, the recorder in his hand didn't fall out. Somehow he clicked it shut after recording this last image and slipped it, unfeelingly, into his pocket.

Then, for the first time, Tsukishima's composure broke as he reached out to tentatively brush the head's waxy cheek. A cracked whisper wound through his lips.

_"Mother."_

No-one knew what to do. Kageyama felt especially wrong-footed as he saw Tsukishima's posture crumble a little at the edges, crumpling into something smaller, more shrunken.

It was Yamaguchi, who had been queasy the whole trip, uncomfortable, scared and nervous in turns for the past day they've known him that immediately shot up with a truncated gasp of _'Tsukki!'_ He coughed past the burn in his throat, staggering up and bee-lined straight towards his friend, his bag tight in his hand. He kneeled next to him, hand hesitant over his shoulder, before decidedly looking through his bag and pulling out a bottle of water.

"Tsukki?" Yamaguchi asked gently, hands offering the water.

It took a long moment for Tsukishima to respond, turning his head sightlessly until his gaze gradually focused on Yamaguchi's face close to his, and the water proffered between them. He wordlessly took the water bottle, and drank great desperate gulps from it before giving it back to Yamaguchi.

"Thanks," Tsukishima rasped, and didn't shake off Yamaguchi's tentative hand on his shoulder when it landed there, solid, even in a world that seemed tilted off its axis. It took him a few breaths, but Tsukishima steadied his hand enough to reach out and carefully unpeel the tape from both her eyelids, closing her eyes gently.

Like all the other heads, his mother's face looked calm, serene. A small blessing.

"Here's a clean shirt, Tsukki. You can wrap her with this," Yamaguchi offered, and it was with an aged solemnity that Tsukishima did so. Behind them, Sugawara and Kageyama watched. Sugawara, with a vague sort of sympathy in his eyes even as his mind seemed to be calculating something, trying to slot puzzle pieces into place.

And Kageyama—

_"Don't you dare,"_ Hinata's voice burned through his mind. _"You're Kageyama Tobio. The one who stands at the top, and if you ever—"_

"Don't worry, Hinata," Kageyama murmured, before tugging on Sugawara's arm. Sugawara looked down at him in inquisitive response. 

"Tell me what I can do to help," Kageyama asked simply.  


* * *

  
The sky was drizzling rain, a light dull grey that was entirely unfitting, Kageyama thought, as he waited in the uncomfortably small awning of a Seven Eleven, trying not to fidget with his collar. Yachi was being driven there by her boyfriend with Hinata from the other side of the city, so Kageyama was heading to the graduation with Yamaguchi and Tsukishima instead.

"Hey, Kageyama!" That call came from an idling car, Tsukishima behind the wheel and Yamaguchi sticking his head out to wave at him a little frantically. "It's a red light and there's no parking, jump in quickly!"

Kageyama quickly jogged forward and jumped over the small road barrier, opening the door quickly and slamming it shut just as the light turned green.

"Hey," Kageyama greeted the both of them, grimacing at the disgusting feeling of a stiff, damp suit. Yamaguchi settled back into his own seat and smiled back at him.

"Haven't seen you in a while, Kageyama!" He grinned, handing him a small towel.

"You'd think a _star athlete_ would know how to do a seatbelt by now," Tsukishima drawled, and Kageyama stopped drying his hair and reached back, pointedly clicking in the seatbelt and Tsukishima smiled. "Better," he praised, all condescending, and Kageyama had learned enough to just really not care anymore, so he just picked up the towel to dry his hair again.

It was a relatively long drive since Ennoshita had gone to a university the next prefecture over, but since Yamaguchi's offer was cheaper than a Shinkansen ticket, he bit the bullet and traded one liners to Tsukishima's acerbic opinions on the news being played on the radio for the next few hours, accompanied sometimes by Yamaguchi's mean-spirited snickers at Tsukishima's take on whatever poor politician was trying to state their opinions.

"You're nearly late!" Yachi was the one who hurried them over, phone still plastered to her ear as she quickly hurried them along to what seemed like a sea of graduation robes milling around in a grass-filled courtyard, interspersed by camera flashes and colourfully dressed family members.

In the sea of people, Kageyama suddenly knew where to go when he saw someone with spikey hair launch themselves on someone's back, clinging onto them like a monkey and hugging their face and knocking his hat askew. As they drew closer, they heard Ennoshita laughing and trying to get Nishinoya's arms off his face.

"Stop it, Noya!" Ennoshita laughed, face red from laughing.

"I can't believe it!" Nishinoya crowed, feet digging into Ennoshita's shoulders as he laughed in glee. "One of us! With a PhD! You're a doctor now! So fancy!"

"Amazing, Ennoshita!" Narita was clapping, and Hinata laughed.

"That's our captain for ya!"

Kageyama sidled next to Hinata just in time for Ennoshita to claw Nishinoya off his face, Nishinoya letting go with a graceful tumble and flip straight back up to standing.

"Hey, Kageyama! Yamaguchi and Tsukishima too! Glad you guys could make it!"

Kageyama reached back to the offered hand, giving Ennoshita a strong forearm shake as he smiled in congratulations.

"Are we late? Yachi looked a little harried there," Yamaguchi asked, going forward to give Ennoshita the small basket of fruit he had as a gift.

From there onwards, Kageyama mingled with his sempais, catching up with Narita, holding up the camera thrust at him from a frazzled Yachi and taking group-shots of everyone, some candid, some posed. He took to that for a while, standing around in his damp suit and catching glimpses of the world into solid pieces of data. One of Ennoshita, Nishinoya, Narita, Kinoshita and Tanaka all standing in a row, Ennoshita smiling in the middle with a framed certificate, smile practically placid in comparison to the near manic ones of his proud friends. Then a few more with Ennoshita posing with his university friends.

_Click. Click. Click. Click._

He somehow wound next to Tsukishima and Yamaguchi again, after handing the camera back to Hinata who promised to give it back to Yachi 'immediately!' but instead took it and snapped a whole slew of photos for the next few minutes he watched him.

They were in a quiet corner waiting for the others to finish saying goodbyes so they could go to their celebratory dinner, Yamaguchi quietly on his phone and Tsukishima deep in thought, hands in pockets.

"Oh, Yachi needs help!" Yamaguchi exclaimed. "Be right back, guys!"

"And there he goes again," Tsukishima sighed, leaning back on the side of the car in a languid droop.

It's an unspoken thing between them in their acknowledgement that, in ratio to Yamaguchi's increased confidence was Yamaguchi's increased willingness to reach out and help his friends out. Who had once been Tsukishima's shadow had sprouted off into someone who found happiness in sharing what he had with his friends.

Without Yamaguchi, Tsukishima's suddenly looked ten times more distant, as the glint of his glasses and the omnipresent deadpan line of his mouth structured the lines of his face into something neutrally unhappy.

Kageyama ignored that observation (Tsukishima would be horrified if he ever offered emotional support anyway) and turned towards his phone, clicking through the few pictures he'd taken, and it was to this silence that Yamaguchi walked back into, easy as he could be, with a happy "Tsukki! Kageyama! Suga-san is calling for the last group shot with everyone, come on!"

When Tsukishima took a few more seconds to reply, Yamaguchi got in close and with a soft punch on his shoulder, told Tsukishima, "I know you're worried the merger might affect your job, but today is Ennoshita's day, Tsukki," Yamaguchi said with feeling. "Come on, let's give our sempai our best smiles!"

Tsukishima scoffed but lightened up. "Do they even deserve a smile? They've been saying goodbye for the past _half an hour._ "

"Come on, Tsukki," Yamaguchi said as he shared a secret grin with Kageyama over Tsukishima's shoulder. When he started lagging behind, Yamaguchi looped an arm Kageyama as well. "With big moments come big goodbyes! Lighten up a little!"  


* * *

  
"Magic is a great preservative," Sugawara reassured Tsukishima, who was holding a magical cube that Kageyama had made out of condensed magic, so condensed it was liquefied. Sugawara had drawn Yamaguchi away to stand sentry over the fainted man's body while Kageyama did this, because the magic necessary for doing this was frankly a horrifying amount no normal person would ever see in their lifetime, but it got the job done. Liquefied magic was like jelly, and when Tsukishima carefully placed his mother's head into the blob of magic Kageyama had given him, Kageyama had carefully shaped it so that it was an easily carried, opaque cube.

"I have more than enough evidence about the true killers of my family now," Tsukishima stated, carefully checking the recorder in his pocket. "We should go back to the Capital."

"We've discovered enough only to say this cult killed your mother and probably your father," Sugawara corrected, "but we still don't have evidence that _Akiteru_ wasn't in the cult. We need more for his trial, Tsukishima. I may have an idea, but we need to go back to your estate. I need my bag," Sugawara said, sighing. "But first…" Sugawara's veins bulged as he heaved the large stone slab back over the pit, hiding the heads from view. Although the slab fit seamlessly back into the opening, now that Kageyama was aware of its existence, it was obvious that there was a suspicious seam on the floor.

"Is there anything we can do to lock it somehow?" Kageyama asked as he crouched and brushed his hand over the floor.

"I actually destroyed a part of the inner mechanism when I lifted it the first time," Sugawara replied. "I don't know how the cult was opening this door, but it certainly wasn't by brute strength. It'll be difficult for anyone that isn't as strong as me to open this now."

Basically no-one then, Kageyama thought, reassured.

"Let's go then," Tsukishima said, looking far too pale for his own good and hugging his mother's head to his chest. "I need… I need to bring mother's head to safety before we do anything else."

They headed back to Yamaguchi, Sugawara slinging the fainted man on his shoulder and leading the way out. Emerging from the sewers back into the city proper was more than a breath of fresh air – the smell of sun-baked houses, the sound of the wind carrying distant laughter – lifted all of their spirits, all of them pausing for a few moments just to breathe in the life of the place, before Yamaguchi took point to lead them back discreetly to Tsukishima's residence.

While Tsukishima personally went to find somewhere safe for his mother's head and the maids were all busy drawing baths for all of them, Sugawara dumped the fainted man in a containment room in the basement. A maid soon trotted up with Sugawara's bag in her hands, and Sugawara promptly dived into it.

"Aha!" He cried as he emerged with a bottle of some sort of acid green liquid. "I found it!" Giving a sly sort of glance to Kageyama, the sort he always got when he was about to crack a maybe not-that-nice joke at Daichi, he said "Yamaguchi, would you be so kind to lead Kageyama to the baths first? I have something to do."

Kageyama promptly got ushered away. When he had tracked the footsteps all the way upstairs, Sugawara looked at the bottle in his hand with a sort of rueful hum.

To his surprise, when he'd created this mix back in Nekomata's cottage half a year back, it was Asahi who had recognised it. Daichi was smiling easy as usual, quietly looking through a book he'd pulled from one of Nekomata's shelves about the habits of bees, but Asahi had given the herbs on his table, and the green being produced in his beaker and shot him a disturbed look.

When Daichi had gone for a toilet break, Asahi had slid in closer to him.

"What—why are you making that, Suga?" Asahi had asked, one long finger pointing at the bubbling ceramics. "Isn't that primarily for, _you know_ …"

"Torture?" Sugawara answered easily, stirring it a little to make sure nothing got burnt. "Yeah. Nekomata said his last batch was getting stale and he needed more."

"Oh, so it's not because something happened and they need to use it…" Asahi breathed out a sigh of relief, and Sugawara took a few seconds to pull up his goggles and look at him.

"I'm surprised you recognised this, Asahi. This isn't nicknamed the _bonemelter_ for fun, and you don't usually see this sort of poison around."

"Well, as a noble you have to uh, know these things," Asahi replied awkwardly. "Just in case I get kidnapped, you know? This potion… it wasn't fun," Asahi said miserably, and Sugawara remembered his eyes widening as he stopped all his movements to turn to Asahi.

"You actually had to swallow it?" Sugawara had kind of yelled, and yeah, maybe he had been more than a little angry on Asahi's behalf too because the more he heard about Asahi's family, the more he wanted to _punch their face in_.

"It-it wasn't that bad, calm down Suga!" Asahi quickly patted his shoulder rapidly, trying to get Sugawara to settle down. "Well, it was, it was _really painful_ actually, but…"

Asahi had a weak smile on, the sheepish eyebrows, the soft lines on that harsh, fierce face.

"Needs must, you know?"

And now Sugawara uncorked the bottle in his hand. Distilled perfectly, the poison didn't smell of anything but the stringent smell of chewed grass. That smell filled the air lightly now, as he approached the man.

_As you say, Asahi. Needs must._

"I know you're awake," Sugawara's voice lacked inflection as it echoed around the stone basement. "You've been faking sleep for the past few minutes now. You think I wouldn't notice?"

The captive slowly opened his eyes, face slowly transforming from the tranquillity of sleep to a savage frown.

"I'll never tell you anything," the man promised, voice low and smooth.

"Never? Not even for money, or protection, or…" The other man stayed stubbornly still, and Sugawara sighed. His voice was light in his ears as he grabbed the other man by the jaw, squeezing it open. "Maybe this will help?"

A single drop fell into the man's open mouth. Sugawara quickly stepped back, waiting. Accordingly, a few minutes later the man started convulsing in his ropes, face set in a silent scream as the poison set in. After only a minute of this, the man calmed down, breathing harshly as sweat dripped down from his face down onto the dungeon floor.

"Feel better? Hey, can you tell me what's the deal with that blood ritual of yours down there? Why all the heads?"

When the man was unresponsive, Sugawara slowly let another drop of poison fall.  


* * *

  
When Kageyama exited the bathroom into the changing room, he was promptly chucked a few pieces of clothing in his face and when he scrabbled them off his face, he saw the laughing face of Sugawara a few steps away, a hand snuffing a few clear giggles.

"These are some of Yamaguchi's spare clothes, he said you'll fit them more than Tsukishima's." Sugawara offered, and Kageyama quickly put them on, giving Sugawara an enquiring look asking _'You finished already?'_ as he rubbed his hair dry. Sugawara smiled.

"I even finished showering before you! The prisoner was very accommodating, you see."

But he refused to say anything more, instead waiting patiently for Kageyama to finish before leading them out of the room into the softly carpeted corridor outside. There, a harried looking maid waiting outside led them to a grandly furnished room, with elaborately embroidered couches and richly coloured curtains that let in sunlight through crystal-clear windows. It was far cry from Yamaguchi's small servant's quarters, and there, they saw Tsukishima lounging on one of the couches in a new set of clothing, Yamaguchi standing behind him the perfect picture of an attentive attendant.

"Your guests have arrived," someone said as they walked in through the door, and they saw Tsukishima sit up and nod slightly.

"Everyone except Yamaguchi is dismissed."

Kageyama watched with curiosity as a surprising number of maids and servants detached from the walls and filed out through the doors, all quietly professional in their movements.

_("Hey, since Tsukishima said you'll get rich since you're a sage, does that mean you're going to have a tonne of maids too, Bakayama? Ooh, you should get a cute one! Hey, didn't we go to a maid café before? Heeeey, Kageyama, don't ignore me~")_

Kageyama ignored Hinata and strolled towards one of the couches and sat down. Tsukishima put down his cup with a soft clink, waving a hand for Yamaguchi to stop standing and sit next to him. Before he could do so though, Sugawara threw a list at him.

"Hey, recognise any of these names?"

Yamaguchi caught the fluttering list a little clumsily and squinted at Sugawara's handwriting.

"Umm… I don't recognise any of these names except these two." He pointed near the end of the list. "Both Takahashi and Ran are in the guards, I think. They're usually on shift together, and I think they're guarding one of the districts tonight."

Sugawara raised his eyebrows. "Wow, you remember all that?"

"Of course he does," Tsukishima cut in. "Yamaguchi, do you remember which district?"

"Hmm, ninth district I think?" Yamaguchi screwed up his face in thought.

"Let's go," Tsukishima hauled himself up, boyish face weary. "We have to leave today, or we will never get back to the Capital in time to face Akiteru's trial. In the least, all of this will give me enough to drag the trial for another few months as they re-evaluate all the evidence again."

"Let's have some food first?" Yamaguchi tentatively suggested.

Tsukishima glanced out the window, at the afternoon sun and shook his head. "It'll be best if leave the city before night-time. I'm not sure exactly when we time-travelled back, but it was dark."

"The ninth district is quite far from the first district where we are," Sugawara cracked his neck. "By carriage it's probably half an hour. If I run, I'll get there in five, investigate, and come back in half an hour. Do you want me to go by myself?"

"No," Tsukishima shook his head. "We'll go together."

"Your choice," Sugawara shrugged easily.

By the time they shuffled out of the carriage they'd all bundled into (Sugawara kitted out with a clean cloak, his bag slung on a shoulder; Kageyama with just his overly big staff, Yamaguchi with his an especially large backpack packed with, he assured, were all essentials, and Tsukishima holding nothing but a carefully handled metal box storing his mother's head), it was five and the sky was tinged with dark.

It was a tiny niggling feeling, but a headache started blooming at the back of Kageyama's head the closer they got to the looming city walls where Yamaguchi had said the guard-houses were situated against.

_("Trust your instincts, Kageyama,"_ Daichi murmured. _"Tell Suga. I think there's more to this than meets the eye.")_

As Kageyama had started to see double, he took Daichi's sound advice.

"Sugawara?" Kageyama quickened his pace to catch the older boy at the elbow. "I'm starting to see things again. Like when we first came into the city."

"You must be sensing some gap in the time magic again, Kageyama," Sugawara answered in concern. "It's good you told me. Hmmm… It might be because we're nearing the city limits," he waved at the wall in front of them casting a stark golden shadow. "Tell me if it gets worse."

It got worse. In fact, by the time they reached the front of the guardhouse, Kageyama was practically being carried by Sugawara, as he saw, over and over again, overlapping each other, all the people that had left or entered the small guardhouse in front of him from dawn to evening like a overlayed loop over his vision.

And at the end of it all was a small figure creeping into the guardhouse a little ways in front of them.

"Yamaguchi," Kageyama managed to mumble out.

As Yamaguchi had basically been hovering over Kageyama the more he looked sick, Yamaguchi nearly leapt to attention.

"You were here." Kageyama said. "At the end. The time loop stops after you enter the guardhouse. You follow the man and enter, then there's a bright red light and then the loop stops and restarts."

Yamaguchi faltered.

"You mean, I'm the reason why the loop even exists?"

Kageyama didn't even know himself, so he just shrugged and squeezed his eyes shut. Sugawara squeezed his hand and answered for him.

"No, he means you definitely found something in there, and it might be dangerous. We need to be careful." After a brief period of thought, Sugawara nodded. "Okay. Yamaguchi, hold Kageyama for a second," and Sugawara quickly offloaded Kageyama off his shoulder onto Yamaguchi's much shorter, bonier one. "Tsukishima, with me. Show your Duke's crest first, but keep your sword at the ready. You two, stay here until we say it's safe."

"Alright," Tsukishima replied, adjusting his cloak and pulling out something metallic.

"Let's go."

There were not many passer-by's at this time of day – most people had already gone home, eating dinner. The guardhouse was surrounded by poorer houses than most, but inside lamps were starting to be lit and smells of home-cooked food wafted from open windows, and distantly, from a few streets across, there was the incessant sound of a small dog constantly barking. Closer than all of that though, was Yamaguchi flinching every time they heard a muffled thump and crash inside the guardhouse. Obviously any attempt at conversation hadn't gone well. Swallowing against his nausea, Kageyama weakly flapped his hand at Yamaguchi's arm.

"They're really strong, they'll be fine."

"I know," Yamaguchi quickly replied. "Tsukki's top of his combat class, you know? He's one of the rising talents of the Capital! He beat the crown prince in a one on one duel once!" Yamaguchi's exclamation was punctuated by the acute silence suddenly behind them. "That doesn't mean that he can't get hurt though," Yamaguchi dipped into a whisper.

When the silence slipped on for a few more seconds, Yamaguchi straightened. "Okay, I can't stand it anymore! Here, Kageyama, an invisibility tag—"A small hand slapped something on his cheek haphazardly, and suddenly instead of staring down at his feet he realised _he had no feet at all_ (his stomach lurched unhappily at seeing this) while an unseen shadow hauled Kageyama up with surprising strength and went straight through the front door.

The guardhouse was a simple room – the vague smell of leather and metal with two bloodied guardsmen conked out face down near what looked like a game of cards and dice. A door leading to the next room was cracked open though, and Yamaguchi lead them in, carefully sidestepping the unconscious men, creaking the next door open.

Two cloaked figures stood in the middle of the room around a stone pedestal. They had flipped over some sort of cloth covering, and opened a casket on top – inside was a large, sinister looking book, bound in some sort of gleaming black leather.

"There's no doubt about it," Tsukishima was whispering to Sugawara. "This book comes from the great library in Fa, and I've heard about a great heist that happened there a few months ago. It brings a lot more factors into the case than previously considered. I'm sure my representatives can make the court dismiss the case against him because of a lack of evidence, or make it go pending for a lot longer. If they can't even do _that_ with all this new evidence, they're not worth the gold I'm paying them."

Sugawara hummed without comment, putting on some gloves before lifting up the book. Immediately, there were a few crackles of harsh red lightning that lashed out into the air, and the stench of burnt leather and ozone filled the room. Sugawara bore it all with silence, lifting the book up until all of them could see a red tether of magic tying it down to the casket it was held in.

"Kageyama, come hold it."

Both Yamaguchi and Kageyama startled at the same time, and Sugawara laughed.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice? Doors don't creak open by themselves, silly."

Yamaguchi pulled off their invisibility tags then, revealing a concerned frown. "You okay, Kageyama?" Yamaguchi whispered to him even as Kageyama started to extract himself to stand on his own.

To be frank, the nausea hadn't entirely left – his stomach flip-flopping like a beached fish on shore – but it wasn't to the point he couldn't walk the few steps over towards Sugawara and, with more than a little hesitation, to touch the crackling book in Sugawara's hands.

Strangely enough, the book calmed down. In fact, the red tether holding the book down snapped on its own, Sugawara's hands jerking up a little by the lack of force as something in the air cracked and shattered. Kageyama's nausea immediately stopped as the red lightning disappeared. Instead, the book had started shining a rich, royal blue. Floating a few inches, it seemed to waver in the air above their hands for a few seconds before decisively flying away from Sugawara and shooting itself into Kageyama's arms.

"Wh-what?" Kageyama caught it, flustered. It wasn't as the book looked any less demonic looking than before – in fact, now that the book wasn't spitting out crackles of demonic red lightning, he could see that the cover was in fact covered by a whole lot jewels fashioned to look like real eyes, gleaming underneath his magical power.

Ew.

Sugawara eyed him thoughtfully, stripping off his gloves as he did so. "Hold it for now, Kageyama," Sugawara instructed, as he herded all of them past the knocked out guards and out of the building. "We only have a little time before the Imperial soldiers outside the gate understand the spell's broken. And if I'm correct in thinking that book was the anchor to the time-loop Yamaguchi had been living in, we should…"

"Yamaguchi, what's happening?" Tsukishima suddenly demanded, alarmed.

Sugawara seemed unsurprised at Tsukishima's alarmed voice, turning to look at the other two and seeing the small servant boy seem to shrivel, the skin drying at near visible speed as Yamaguchi himself stared at himself in horror. Flickers of himself were... melting away, the edges blurred like an out of focus photograph. Grey tinged the skin on his hands, while his nails started to shine a deep, unerring black.

"Kageyama, wrap him with your magic. Just think of it like what you did to protect me from the assassin in the forest," Sugawara briskly told him, and Kageyama quickly dived for his staff, waving it, praying hurriedly until a blue force rushed out of the crystal set on his staff to enclose Yamaguchi in a barrier, realising with fear that Yamaguchi's hair had turned white and brittle. 

Sugawara's sigh was abnormally loud when he gently passed Kageyama's crouching form and picked Yamaguchi up. 

_"That yapping dog has gone quiet,"_ Tanaka said the moment he noticed the silence.

_"The lights suddenly switched off, Kageyama,"_ Yachi whispered.

_"The smell of dinner is gone too,"_ Noya noticed with a loud sniff.

A high keening wail came through one of the open windows next to the guardhouse before choking into silence. A small pot plant that had been hanging cheerily on one of the doorways started to shrivel and yellow. In a few seconds, the brisk wind started up, blowing its dusty remains away. The dried, yellow brick seemed oddly powdery underneath their feet, turning brown, then grey, even as the sun that had been shining it's dimming sunset so brightly upon them suddenly vanished underneath a host of large, roiling black clouds.

Sugawara took one glance at the weather, and frowned. "This must be the reason why time magic is taboo. We need to get out of here."

Catching Kageyama around the stomach, he leapt up onto the city wall right next to the guardhouse, and Tsukishima wasn't far behind, only carrying Yamaguchi's pack and his metal box as he sprinted towards the wall and clambered up. By that time, a horrid greyness had started spreading behind them, an aura of death started emanating from the very bones of the city, as every step Sugawara took against the wall as he climbed seemed to splinter and crack the brick, letting a bubbling, black liquid seep through. On Sugawara's shoulder, Yamaguchi grimaced. The grey energy was, to Kageyama's horror, writhing like a million tiny mouths, biting itself into his barrier to try and reach the greyness on Yamaguchi's skin, which seemed to be similarly trying to eat its way towards its brethren outside. Kageyama stopped being reserved, and quickly poured more magic into the barrier, lighting Yamaguchi into a lone blue beacon in the rapidly growing dark.

"Quickly!" Sugawara yelled down at Tsukishima, who only just successfully reached the bottom of the city walls. Tsukishima took no time, near leaping up the wall until he had to resort to using his hands. Sugawara spent an extra second to haul him up and throw him across the other side (Tsukishima, to his credit, managed to swallow and curl into a ball for a safer landing) before jumping straight down from the wall himself with a kid on either shoulder, catching Tsukishima's collar before he landed on the ground and running straight into the sparse forest beyond where the grey hadn't fully eaten into, leaves still retaining a lost, sickly green. Quickly navigating back to where Tsukishima had left their carriage, he bundled them all up together and ordered the carriage doll to speed straight back to the Holy City as quickly as possible.

Inside the carriage, Sugawara quickly checked that all kids were all unharmed before motioning for them to be quiet and flashing on top of the carriage. They hadn't gone far, but the angle of the road didn't allow Sugawara to see what was going on. He clucked his tongue in frustration before forcefully making himself calm down. Breathe. Closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths, he let the rhythm of his heart spur him, his beating heart letting the qi cycle once, twice... Three times was overkill, probably, and time was of the essence.

Opening his eyes and ears, he ignored the creaking wheels and the horses behind him to concentrate on the heavy footsteps and the sound of mass chanting further in the forest back where they came. Realising the forest was too dense to spy through, he leaped onto a branch, quickly swinging himself to land on top of the highest tree. There, he could see now, the golden city of Hisho that had seemed to dry out and wither. Further left were the few platoons of soldiers that had been guarding the gates, trying to maintain a border and protect a small group of chanting mages who were apparently trying to create a multi-coloured barrier to contain the damage, ballooning over the city like loose netting. But even without using any boost to allow him to examine magic, Sugawara already knew the barrier was failing. In a mere second it was already eaten through. 

And it seemed like their attempt to contain whatever it was had angered it.

The soldiers immediately started falling back even while the grey energy started to writhe and bulge out over the city limits, thick tendrils reaching with horrifying speed towards the some of the screaming soldiers, breaking rank as they ran away in speeds in respect to their own skills. A mage, abandoned by her protector, tripped over her robes when she tried to run further away from the city, and in no second at all, she was quickly taken. Her screams abruptly stopped in Sugawara's ears when she was pulled inside the city, and Sugawara stopped his vision here, mouth set in a hard line as he flashed quickly back towards their speeding carriage.

"Hisho's fallen," Sugawara said shortly, even as he slumped himself down into a corner and tried not to hunch into his cloak. It was in times like these he wished he had Nekomata's cunning smirk, or a pocket of Daichi's laughter. Even a glimpse of Asahi's worried face would do. "Kageyama, we weren't trapped in there for as long as Yamaguchi, but it might be a good idea to cover all of us with your magic."

Kageyama's magic washed over them like dipping into a cool spring lake, and all three of them breathed easier then, immediately feeling better. The farther they were from Hisho, the less grey-scaled the world turned, and the squirming energy on Yamaguchi's skin started to falter, retreating into stillness.

The trip back to Daikoku's Holy City was a silent one. They arrived at the city gates late afternoon, and they skipped the line of caravans waiting to check in by a simple flash of Tsukishima's crest. The carriage was quickly dismissed in front of the temple, the doll trundling it around the corner and quickly out of sight. Kageyama had sacrificed his cloak to cover Yamaguchi's glowing form, and Sugawara was carrying him in his arms as they rushed into the temple.

"Transportation to White River, quickly," Tsukishima snapped at a priest, before shoving a bunch of notes into his hands. The priest blinked at the bills in his palms before immediately turning on a benevolent smile.

"Pious believers, this way please." The priest led them back down into the corridors, before deliberately pausing a little to let them see the end of the line politely queuing down the side of the corridor waiting for transport. "It will approximately be a two hour wait unless..." The priest looked at the huddle of a person in Sugawara's arms, pretending to just notice the harsh gasps that Yamaguchi had been drawing all this time. "I notice you may be in a bit of a hurry. Perhaps if I had a little, ah, _incentive_ I can pull some strings...?"

Tsukishima wordlessly pulled out his crest. "I promise to reimburse the Silver Order upon the name of the Tsukishima family. You have my word."

"Oh, honoured guests," the priest immediately bowed his head with a large smile. "This way please."

They were immediately lead past the line of wealthily dressed people into a private room, where again they stood in the middle of an intricately engraved room waiting for the priests to start chanting. Their return to White River was abrupt - stepping out into austere buildings of his home was like stepping back into an awkwardly fit glove. Too many things had happened in a few days - exploring sewers, bloody caves, cults and witnessing whole cities wracked with _time magic_... Tsukishima took the lead with a small, silent sigh.

"Kageyama..." Tsukishima said when they had entered Tsukishima's estate, past some large gardens into an airy sitting room complete with french windows. The scenery outside was calming, a tranquil view of some rose gardens. They were all settled down, Yamaguchi carefully placed on the largest sofa, when a lady named Kana _[Retired Librarian]_ dismissed all the other servants and retreated herself, leaving them alone. When the door closed with a click, Tsukishima turned back to him. "Kageyama, as a sage, can you cure Yamaguchi? Just like that bandit we passed on the way to Hisho?"

"I can try," Kageyama confirmed, and Tsukishima took to that with a business-like dip to the head, turning on the heel of his foot towards the door. 

"Sugawara, can you accompany me to submit my evidence for Akiteru's case? The trial is tomorrow, and I'd rather finish everything I can as soon as possible." Tsukishima asked formally. "I haven't forgotten the reason why you both found me so fast was an assassination attempt. I promise Kageyama will be safe here."

Sugawara hesitated, before nodding. "Alright. This room is quite safe," Sugawara's eyes lingering certain corners of the room. "Don't do anything drastic, Kageyama. If you can't help Yamaguchi, then wait for me to come back, and we can think of options together, okay?" When Kageyama nodded in assent, Sugawara smiled, before leaving the room with a gentle click of the door alongside Tsukishima. Kageyama feeling strangely calm as he walked closer to a labouring Yamaguchi, who had sweat through his shirt and had nearly tossed himself off the couch with a groan of pain. 

Yamaguchi's title used to be a glowing white, just like the others. _[Bumbling Sidekick A]_ It had said before, kind of unkindly to Kageyama's opinion, which is why he'd ignored it. But now, just like the bandit, the title had changed colour. The bandit's one had been turning red, but this time... it was turning black. It was probably not a good sign.

To be frank, Kageyama felt quite out of his depth. He'd literally only learnt about magic since he met Suga, and of all that time Suga would laughingly admitt that _he knew nothing about spellcasting, sorry Kageyama!_ Half of the things he did was just from trial and error. What sort of qualification did he even have for this? He didn't understand half of what Sugawara was trying to do, he'd never asked. Whatever Tsukishima was doing had a lot more blood than he'd ever wanted to see, and Kiyoko wasn't kidding when she said things were much more complicated and difficult outside of his village, was she?

_"You never know until you try."_ That was something Yamaguchi had said to him once, looking out across the riverbank where they'd been walking down. There, the afternoon sun had beat down on their shoulders to counter the chilliness of autumn, and amidst the relative silence of a country road, Yamaguchi had given him an encouraging nudge. _"Whatever you do, just know I got your back."_

Kageyama looked at this small version of Yamaguchi and frowned. You have to stay alive to have my back, idiot.

Kageyama stared at his staff.

Hey. Goddess.

_What is it, Kageyama Tobio?_

What can I do to help Yamaguchi?

_Hmm... That's difficult._ He felt a presence swim out from his arms, passing near his lips before swirling around the room in a wave of air and landing to peer at Yamaguchi's emaciated figure on the couch. The room suddenly smelt like the ocean, brine strong in the air. Kageyama licked his lips and tasted salt. _Ooh he's meddled with time. What a no no._

Why is that?

_Imagine a long, long ribbon, and your Yamaguchi Tadashi using a stick and waving it around until there's this large tangle. Now someone has forcefully pulled it straight, and the ribbon's all wrinkled and torn and stretched. That's your friend here. Wrinkled and torn and stretched, and because of that he was leaking away until you wrapped him. This boy... has around two hours left._

Tell me how to save him. 

_Well, I can help you, as the Goddess of all things that Flow. Enough consider time as something that flows for me to have some influence. But I cannot act so freely in your domain without aid. Will you pay the price, Kageyama Tobio?_

What is it?

The figure perched on the couch peered at him, and a woman's voice laughed.

* * *

  
Yamaguchi slowly opened his eyes to the familiar smell of Lady Tsukishima's perfume, the evening light filtering from the french windows he'd wiped too many times to count and... the lingering smell of blood?

Wait, what?

Yamaguchi immediately sat up in panic, worst case scenarios flying through his head as he looked around desperately for his companions. In the small boudoir was only one other person sitting, the small dark-haired figure of that mysterious and powerful magician that Tsukki had brought. Currently, the other boy was sat on another cushioned sofa awkwardly wrapping his cloak around one of his hands.

"You're awake," Kageyama perked up when he noticed Yamaguchi practically flinging himself off the seat he'd been lying on. "That's good. Can you help me with this?"

"Oh, phew," Yamaguchi patted his chest trying to calm himself. "I thought there was someone bleeding to death, or something like that," but even as he said it, he noticed that Kageyama's face had stiffened into something a little more awkward.

"Well," the other boy said, unwrapping the awkward bundle on his arm. Soon enough, the the metallic smell of blood grew stronger as Yamaguchi realised the dark patches on the cloak actually wasn't mud after all. "Help?" Kageyama asked, holding out his hand where his left pinky finger had _disappeared_ , continuously leaking blood onto the cloak that Kageyama conscientiously put underneath so he didn't stain any carpets. 

"Aaaah! Doctor! We need to call a doctor!" Yamaguchi screamed, drawing more than a few maids into the room and paling at the sight of so much blood. They quickly retreated, and they could both faintly hear loud calls for someone to call a doctor inside.

"No, it just needs wrapping," Kageyama shook his head and insisted, but by then Yamaguchi had already stuffed the cloak back around his hand, exerting pressure.

"What even happened after we left Hisho? Were you tortured? Is, is Tsukki okay?" Yamaguchi asked, nerves not letting his heart rest for even one moment.

"They're fine. Sugawara is accompanying Tsukishima to submit the evidence," Kageyama didn't hide anything as he answered. "I was told to watch over you."

Yamaguchi was fretting over his hand, increasing the pressure until Kageyama was wincing from the pain. "Sorry, but I need to make sure you lose less blood..." Yamaguchi's face suddenly paled. "Was this a result of you curing me?"

Kageyama shook his head. He had gotten better at lying, as the years gone by. In his later years, even Hinata sometimes never caught onto them.

"No. I got bored when I saw you were getting better without help, so I tried a few magical experiments," Kageyama replied stoically. 

"Aren't you still a beginner?" Yamaguchi immediately got a little angry. "You shouldn't be doing any magical experiments without a teacher around! If even Tsukki says you're talented, that means you're definitely going to be amazing one day. Don't waste your life like this!" Kageyama gave him a tiny smile, and Yamaguchi couldn't help but feel a little more stifled at the utter lack of repentance going through his brain. 

A harried looking man hurried into the room then, holding a large box and Yamaguchi immediately turned around with a bright, 'Doctor Moto!', who quickly dismissed any concerns and directly looked at Kageyama's wound, asking a few questions before slathering some cream onto it and wrapping his hand tight. The rotund man immediately hauled himself up though, respectfully asking Kageyama to check up with him in a few days.

"Phew!" Yamaguchi wiped his forehead free of sweat after the doctor had retreated. "The last day has been absolutely insane, hasn't it?"

Kageyama tentatively touched his left hand, now wrapped in white gauze before replying. "Yamaguchi, I think you should look in a mirror."

"Eh, why?" Yamaguchi asked even as he got up and walked towards the window. "Is something on my face?"

Kageyama glanced at the changed title on top of Yamaguchi's head, and vaguely remembered how in Japan, Yamaguchi had grew more and more sensitive the topic of his appearance as he grew older. "Uhh..."

"Oh my god, why is my hair white?! I look like an old man!" Yamaguchi yelled with a certain atmosphere of dismay.

_[Transformed Shota Anime Boy]_ was probably better as a title than _[Bumbling Side-kick A]_ right?

Kageyama couldn't help it. For the first time, he couldn't suppress the bubble of laughter coming out of his chest, and he snickered into his bandages. Although Yamaguchi had been sadly running his hands through his hair and carefully examining the colour of the loose strands that came off, he paused what he'd been doing and, without much understanding at all, laughed with him even while asking 'What's so funny, Kageyama?'

"Nothing," Kageyama said when he'd finally calmed down. "Maybe we can find a way to restore your hair colour one day," Kageyama stated. If he had overwhelming magical power, the least he could do was use some of that to give back colour to a friend's fading hair, right?

"Oh, thank you so much!" Yamaguchi replied, tugging at his hair. "I look absolutely _awful_ with this hair colour."

Kageyama snickered. 

"It suits you."  


* * *

  
**Extra**

****

"To the two of us," Yamaguchi toasted, reaching out to clink his sake cup against Kageyama's – untouched, still sitting on the table – and drinking the whole mouthful with one gulp. Inside Kageyama and Hinata's apartment, things couldn't be brighter, with the fairy-lights Hinata had insisted on hanging up festooned asymmetrically in random corners, the lights all turned on in the kitchen and living room area, and the television opened up to a cheery Christmas channel selling an abundance of chocolate and gifts by a very energetic female salesperson cooing over each and every flavour offered in a shop over-decorated with star-décor. Outside their balcony window they could see the whole city twinkling with light and festivities, and since their road looked down on the main road, they could see just how crowded the streets were with couples enjoying their night out together.

But on that night, Kageyama said nothing as he reached out and topped Yamaguchi's sake. Yamaguchi, having shed his image as a professional researcher and had cleaned up before coming here, had his ears red and whole face starting to flush as he downed that cup too.

"I can't believe," Yamaguchi said, and Kageyama braced himself for it. "I can't believe she dumped me straight before Christmas!" Yamaguchi started sobbing in his sleeve, and Kageyama promptly offered a pre-prepared tissue that Yamaguchi took shakily and blew his nose in, before dumping it in the bin Kageyama had already placed next to his chair. With a critical eye, Kageyama noted that it was nearly overflowing again.

"It's Christmas!" Yamaguchi forced through the tears. "How could anyone dump someone right before Christmas? That's just, just heartless!"

Kageyama nodded in affirmation when Yamaguchi looked at him, and stopped when Yamaguchi started blankly looking at the TV, where the female salesperson had gone on to gesture happily at a soft-toy store, interviewing a few couples that were entering in and out of the place about how in love and happy they were. When Yamaguchi started to tear up again, Kageyama immediately offered him another tissue.

The thing is, Yamaguchi was a crying drunk.

Usually he'd drink and start crying about how lucky he was that he had such wonderful friends, or how grateful he was about his life, but now and again things like this would show up and a friend or two would have to take up tissue-box duty (as he was the type to tug out ten tissues at a time to blow his nose once and waste the lot).

"I'm so sorry, Kageyama," Yamaguchi croaked up after a good sob that shared way too many details about Yamaguchi's relationship with his ex-girlfriend that he ever wanted to know. "It's Christmas and you're just sitting here with me crying all over you."

Kageyama shrugged. "I wasn't doing anything anyway."

Which was true. Hinata had been invited to a workmate's Christmas party at a semi-formal location in a swanky hotel, and Kageyama had declined the plus one offer that Hinata had pushed at him. So he'd taken Yachi instead, which had drawn out all sort of 'ooooooooohs' from their various sempai.

(Yachi, in exasperation, rolled her eyes. "It's like they don't understand the concept that a girl and a guy can be friends." She'd muttered at him as she stirred a pot of soup. "I love Hinata, just like I love you, even though you should smile more."

Kageyama dodged the soupy spoon she'd poked at him with, and Yachi gave a soft giggle and went back to stirring. "Loving you guys doesn't mean I want to date you guys. You're perfectly nice and all but as a boyfriend…?" Yachi made a face, and Kageyama wondered if he should be offended. According to his sports coverage, he was quite a catch, you know? "If you're asking me what my type is in the Karasuno band, it'll probably be… Suga-sempai?"

And Kageyama stoically offered, "Do you want me to tell him?"

Yachi dropped her spoon into the soup pot in horror. "W-w-what? No! Never do that, Kageyama Tobio!" She whacked him ineffectually with her hands, and Kageyama finally broke into a tiny smirk. "D-did you just crack a joke?"

Even though Yachi was impressed by his 'character development', he was still delegated to fish out the spoon in the pot for the next five minutes.)

Good times.

"And Tsukki's in his grand company dinner, and I couldn't just tag along and drink all that free wine because Tsukki somehow invited the President's daughter as his date! How can you third wheel that?" Yamaguchi moaned. "You don't, that's what."

Kageyama refilled his sake cup, even as Yamaguchi had distractedly started scrolling through his phone. The next second, the phone was suddenly shoved close to his face, and Kageyama blinked at the blue and white panes of a facebook profile. A post was recently posted a few minutes ago, of a small, smiling girl being hugged by a large, brawny looking guy. "She dumped me last week and already has another boyfriend?" Yamaguchi near screeched into the air, nearly kicking the table as he suddenly stood up. "How could she? I, I _trusted_ her! I thought we would at least share some of the heartbreak together!"

"Yamaguchi, it's eight in the evening," Kageyama merely replied, wiping away some of the spilled sake. "Sound ban."

"Whoops, sorry," Yamaguchi immediately wilted back into his seat, hand immediately finding his refilled sake and sipping it contritely. 

For the next few minutes, they both watched the television together, Yamaguchi swiping five tissues to wipe a few single tears that kept cropping up as he continued to drink himself under the table. The vague babble of a crowd, somewhere far away, cheering as they watched a Christmas themed street performance washed over them as they followed the interviewer go around the crowd and laugh about the coming New Year as well. After they finished the sake bottle, Kageyama brought over a pitcher of water so Yamaguchi wouldn't wake up _too_ plastered, before they switched off the television channel and hooked up Mario Kart. Kageyama just stuck with Mario, Yamaguchi chose Toad, and then they played drunk in global multiplayer against people like themselves who hunched down in their apartments and played video games on Christmas.

Kageyama didn't really know when they fell asleep, only waking up late next morning to a grinning Hinata who had just arrived back home, controller in hand and TV still running, Yamaguchi's head slumped on the couch and his leg somehow rested on the table, having already knocked over quite a few empty sake bottles.

"Wild night, huh?" Hinata asked in an exaggerated whisper, obviously trying to be considerate for any hangover he might have. Kageyama pointedly eyed the empty bottles of alcohol on the table, and Hinata couldn't hold back a few cackles of laughter. "Well, I'm not going to cook you guys breakfast, but I will join you for a nice brunch if you guys are going out to eat."

"We're eating out," Yamaguchi croaked out from the other side. "Screw home-cooking, I want morning ramen."

So that Christmas Eve they all ate heavy bowls of Tonkotsu ramen together, Kageyama somehow finding himself sitting in the middle between Hinata, who was waving his chopsticks rudely around as he spoke of some weird chairperson yesterday night who drank too much and started stripping when the dancing started, and Yamaguchi who shared back his sadness over his break-up with his ex. And Kageyama was mostly silent in between them, snapping out a few disgusted _'wipe your mouth'_ s at Hinata, and ordering extra eggs for all of them, and as he slurped up his ramen he couldn't stop a tiny, tiny, wavering twinge of a smile from rising up from the corners of his mouth.

If asked, it was obviously because the ramen was especially delicious that day.

Of course it wasn't the _company_ , that's utterly ridiculous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how long this chapter took - if it counts, I rewrote this three times and it took three months, haha. Even now I think I can probably change a lot, but then I decided enough was enough (and decided to move on).  
> On the upside, half the stuff I cut has now been shoved into the next chapter so it probably won't take so long this time :D  
> Thank you so much for the comments last chapter. They give me life and make me really happy.  
> (Pairing wise... for now, I'm going to stick to friendships. This is a friendship fic, first and foremost after all, haha. :D I know that if I add romantic relationships it'll probably a lot more people's cup of tea, but for one, they're still very young, and two, there's still some issues to deal with haha. I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts though, especially as the story develops and maybe romance becoming something that occupy their minds a lot more.)


End file.
